Carney's cabinet has more MPs from Brampton than Alberta and Saskatchewan combined
The newly appointed cabinet of Prime Minister Mark Carney contains 28 ministers and 10 secretaries of state. Three of those 38 hail from ridings in Brampton. As Conservative writer and political campaigner Stephen Taylor has pointed out, that’s more than the numbers from Saskatchewan and Alberta combined . Here’s what to know about them.
LOL. Brampton has more representation in Mark Carney’s cabinet than Saskatchewan and Alberta combined.
— Stephen Taylor (@stephen_taylor) May 13, 2025
Who are the three Brampton appointees?
Shafqat Ali has been named President of the Treasury Board, his first cabinet post since being elected in Brampton Centre (now Brampton-Chinguacousy Park) in 2021. His website describes him as “a successful immigrant entrepreneur.”
Maninder Sidhu, the newly appointed Minister of International Trade, has held the riding of Brampton East since 2019. He has held parliamentary secretary positions for the ministers of foreign affairs, international development and international trade and economic development. He has lived in Brampton since he was a child.
Ruby Sahota, Secretary of State (Combatting Crime), is the Brampton North–Caledon (formerly Brampton North) representative, having first been elected in 2015. She served as the Chief Government Whip from January to December of 2024, and was briefly Minister of Democratic Institutions and Minister Responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario.
Congratulations to 3 newly appointed members of cabinet from Brampton!
— BramptonBOT (@BramptonBOT) May 13, 2025
On behalf of the Brampton Board of Trade, we extend our heartfelt congratulations to the Honourable Shafqat Ali, Maninder Sidhu, and Ruby Sahota on their appointments to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s cabinet. pic.twitter.com/alQPba2iPM
How did the Liberals fare in Brampton?
Brampton’s six ridings were mostly Liberal strongholds. In addition to the three appointees, the new government also contains Liberal MPs from Brampton South (Sonia Sidhu) and Brampton Centre (Amandeep Sodhi). Only Brampton West chose another party’s candidate, with Conservative nominee Amarjeet Gill unseating Liberal incumbent Kamal Khera by just under a thousand votes.
How does that compare to the previous election?
The Liberals took all of Brampton’s five ridings in the 2021 federal election. However, the 2022 redistribution of electoral districts redrew the boundaries of the ridings and added a sixth .
How meaningful is it to have three appointees from Brampton?
Nelson Wiseman , professor emeritus in the department of political science at the University of Toronto, cautioned against reading too much into these appointments and of looking at the results “with a microscope,” as he put it.
“I don’t think it’s terribly significant,” he told National Post. “You have to get a certain number of people from the GTA, and Brampton is part of that. It’s not as if you had all of a sudden seven cabinet ministers from Nova Scotia.”
There are in fact two appointees from Nova Scotia, two from New Brunswick, and one each from Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Territories. The rest are split between British Columbia (five), Quebec (nine) and Ontario (14). Carney even boasted about the makeup of cabinet, telling reporters : “We’re governing for all Canadians, all regions.”
“Do I think Carney took that into account?” Wiseman said of the Brampton contingent. “No, I doubt it. He didn’t use a microscope; he used a telescope. So he probably had a rough number in his head of how many they could have in Ontario, having to take into account that you’re going to have to appoint people from these other regions.”
He also noted that two of the three Brampton MPs have relatively minor roles. “Secretary of State for crime doesn’t mean a thing,” he said bluntly. “That person doesn’t get a department. That person doesn’t get staff. That person doesn’t get budget. I don’t think they’ll get a driver either. They might.”
And while minister for international trade might seem like a plum post, Wiseman pointed out: “Over 75 per cent of Canada’s international trade is with the United States and — hey! We’ve got a minister that’s handling that.” (Dominic LeBlanc has been named Minister Responsible for Canada-U.S. Trade, Intergovernmental Affairs and One Canadian Economy.)
That leaves the President of the Treasury Board, which Wiseman noted is a full cabinet position and the only of the three to go back to Confederation and be constitutionally required. That said, “It’s significant but it’s not a senior cabinet position … like Justice or Foreign Affairs or Transport or Immigration. Because it’s not so much a policy area, it’s more of an administrative basket.”
Do the Brampton appointments mirror the region’s population?
Not really. In fact, provincial appointments may have been chosen at the expense of population centres. Brampton’s three ridings with appointees are home to just 340,000 people. But Alberta and Saskatchewan, with just one minister and one secretary of state, have a combined population of some 6.2 million.
Meanwhile, many of the larger population centres have been shut out entirely, with no jobs given to MPs from Winnipeg or Calgary. Eleanor Olszewski, Minister of Emergency Management and Community Resilience and Minister responsible for Prairies Economic Development Canada, is MP in Edmonton Centre.
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