Mazier sees no difference with new federal cabinet

May 19, 2025, 11:37 am
Ryan Kiedrowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Prime Minister Mark Carney announced his new cabinet last week with many new faces—and even new ministries. Despite some of the changes, Dan Mazier, MP for Riding Mountain, says he doesn’t see much in the way of actual change so far.
“There is really no difference,” he said. “These are the same old cabinet ministers, and for (Steven) Guilbeault to come out not even 48 hours after he’s been appointed to say, ‘yeah, we don’t need any pipelines,’ the same guy that shut down our industry for the last 10 years, he doesn’t think we need any more roads either. He’s trying to shut down our automotive industry.”
Guilbeault was also the former Environment Minister under Justin Trudeau that introduced the Carbon Tax. Mazier says his stance on building a pipeline defies Carney’s words of support of such a project, resulting in mixed signals from the Liberals.
“Sean Fraser, I was quite surprised, they put him in Public Safety—he made a mess of our immigration system,” says Mazier. “And then, of course, we got the past mayor of Vancouver (Gregor Robinson, now Housing Minister), talking about how he really doesn’t want to make any cheaper homes.”
Mazier says with the new cabinet, it appears as though the issues of the day brought forward by average Canadians have simply been ignored.
“There’s total disregard for what people are going through and what I heard in the doors during an election, and for the last 10 years,” Mazier said. “The Liberals are not changing that direction from what I can see so far. The question’s been asked: what Carney is going to show up—the one where he told Canadians during the election that he’s a different person, or is it going to be the same Mark Carney that backed Justin Trudeau in the last at least five years, and making sure that our resources don’t get developed and we basically pay more taxes. If that’s the Carney that shows up, well, I guess we’re right.”
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne also announced last week that the Liberals will not table a budget this year—something that hasn’t happened since the onset of the pandemic in 2020.

“Even the fact that they’re not going to do a budget, there goes the lack of transparency right off the hop,” Mazier said. “Canadians don’t have an idea of what our books are like again. What is really being hidden in there, right? So I don’t see any changes from the past Liberal government. But again, I really do want to work with this government. I really want to give them a fair shake. But I tell you, Canadians should be a little bit concerned with what they’re hearing in the last 48 hours.”

A new ministry focussed on Artificial Intelligence has Mazier questioning how serious this government is about issues that affect Canadians.

“Even Evan Solomon (former broadcaster and first ever AI Minister), they’re talking about AI,” Mazier said. “Nowhere are they talking about stopping the development of C-11 (Online Streaming Act), as far as this whole new government entity of watching what goes on the internet and putting Canadian content first, over all those bills that are basically freedom of speech and what is he doing with that? He’s just talking about AI and has nothing to do with connectivity.”
Staying connected is especially important for those living outside the cities—another population Mazier feels has been left out.

“Agriculture is one thing, but actual development of rural Canada, and how we’re going to stay connected, that’s a pretty important file to me,” he said. “I am really looking forward to seeing, as far as the Throne Speech, and specifically on what is there for rural Canada. You can put an officer and minister in there and talk about rural development, but what’s it really mean? What’s the plan, what’s that really going to have? What impact is that going to have on our on our rural towns and getting resources out, getting our agriculture products out to markets that really are quite thirsty for them.”

For now, as with all newly-elected MPs, Mazier is planning ahead for the coming four-week sitting of the House and the following summer months.