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The Peace Tower of Parliament Hill in Ottawa in June, 2024.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Glenn Purves, a BlackRock executive, has been brought back to the public service to become deputy minister of international trade as part of the Carney government’s latest shuffle of the federal bureaucracy’s senior ranks.
The announcement names 16 individuals who will be taking on new roles. Many of the changes involve current deputy ministers moving to new departments.
Mr. Purves has been the global head of macro research at BlackRock Investment Institute since January, 2025. New York-based BlackRock is one of the world’s largest investment managers. The Investment Institute is its research division.
Prior to that, he held several senior positions in the federal public service, including Assistant Deputy Minister at Finance Canada between 2021 and 2023.
Other changes include David Angell, Foreign and Defence Policy Adviser to the Prime Minister and the Privy Council Office, becoming Associate Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Also, Kevin Brosseau, Commissioner of Canada’s Fight Against Fentanyl, often known as the “fentanyl czar,” becomes Senior Associate Deputy Minister of National Defence and, concurrently, Commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard, in addition to his responsibilities related to fentanyl.
The announcement also lists three deputy ministers who will be retiring from the public service: Chris Forbes, the former Deputy Minister of Finance, Bob Hamilton, the Commissioner of Revenue and Anne Kelly, the Commissioner of Corrections.
Two other senior leaders will be leaving for international roles, including International Development Deputy Minister Christopher MacLennan, who has been nominated as the next Executive Director for Canada, Ireland and the Caribbean at the World Bank Group, and Sandra McCardell, Associate Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, who has been nominated as the next Executive Director for Canada, China, Kuwait, South Korea and Türkiye at the African Development Bank.
Prime Minister Mark Carney had previously announced a shuffle of deputy ministers in December and said at that time that further changes would be announced in the new year.
Deputy ministers are the most senior public servants in a government department. They are responsible for providing policy advice to their ministers in addition to running their departments.
They also take part in various meetings related to government-wide policy issues with other deputy ministers.
The Liberal government’s November budget included a pledge to attract private sector expertise to the public service. It said the existing Interchange Canada program would be rebranded as the Build Canada Exchange, “with an ambitious, immediate-term goal of integrating 50 external leaders in technology, finance, science, and other sectors into the public service.”
No further updates have been announced since then related to this pledge.
The appointment of Mr. Purves from BlackRock is among a handful of recent examples outside of this promised new program in which private sector executives have been brought in to fill senior roles.
Last summer, Mr. Carney named Dawn Farrell, a veteran energy industry executive and former head of Trans Mountain Corp., to lead Ottawa’s new Major Projects Office.
In October, the Prime Minister announced that a new Defence Investment Agency would be led by Doug Guzman, who previously served as deputy chair of Royal Bank of Canada as well as managing director at Goldman Sachs.
Some of the other changes announced Wednesday include Rob Stewart, Deputy Minister of International Trade, becoming Deputy Minister responsible to lead the creation of a new Financial Crimes Agency.
And Ted Gallivan, Interim Deputy National Security and Intelligence Adviser to the Prime Minister, becomes Deputy Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. Mr. Gallivan previously held senior roles at the Canada Border Services Agency and the Canada Revenue Agency.
The federal public service is in the midst of significant change. The November budget laid out plans to reduce the size of the public service by 30,000 positions over three years, in addition to a 10,000 reduction that occurred in the previous year.
The job cuts are part of a broader Comprehensive Expenditure Review aimed at finding $60-billion in savings over three years.
Departments have been rolling out their individual plans for job reductions, and some are starting to reveal more detailed effects for specific programs and services.
