By Dean Brown.

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Good day,

There’s something happening inside Ottawa that I think is becoming much easier to see.

Mark Carney isn’t simply changing policies.

He appears to be changing how the federal government gets things done.

Major projects have their own office. Defence procurement has its own agency. Housing has Build Canada Homes. And now artificial intelligence has a new council sitting unusually close to the Prime Minister.

The common idea seems to be pretty simple:

If the existing system moves too slowly, build something more focused around the problem.

Whether that actually works is the part I’m interested in.

A lot of attention this week came from a Toronto Star column by Justin Ling based on conversations with more than a dozen people in and around the Carney government.

Important distinction: it was an opinion column informed by insider reporting, not an independent investigation proving that cabinet or Parliament has been sidelined.

But some of the structural changes Ling describes are easy to verify.

Ottawa created the Major Projects Office to coordinate major infrastructure instead of making proponents navigate federal departments one by one. The Defence Investment Agency is supposed to centralize military procurement. Build Canada Homes was created to focus federal resources directly on housing construction. Internationly

Meanwhile, the federal core public administration has fallen from 279,396 employees in March 2025 to 263,604 in July 2026. That does not prove Carney has somehow eliminated bureaucracy, but Ottawa’s central administration is smaller than it was when he took office. Canada

What seems to be emerging is a government with a smaller centre and more specialized organizations built around its biggest priorities.

WATCH ON YOUTUBE: Carney Is Rebuilding How Ottawa Works

Carney has created a new 13-member Prime Minister’s National Council on Artificial Intelligence.

It includes Yoshua Bengio, former Nvidia researcher Sanja Fidler, Cloudflare co-founder Michelle Zatlyn and people from investing, government, security and technology. The council will advise on AI adoption, safety, economic competitiveness, sovereign infrastructure and the implementation of Canada’s new AI strategy. PM of Canada

But Canada did not suddenly get its first AI council.

Ottawa created an Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence in 2019 and refreshed its membership and mandate in 2025. Canada

The difference is where this new council sits.

It is supported by the Privy Council Office, much closer to the Prime Minister, and is focused specifically on helping implement Carney’s AI strategy.

It also has no regulatory authority.

It cannot pass laws or order companies around. Ministers and departments remain responsible for actual policy decisions. PM of Canada

That makes this another interesting example of the governing model we’re seeing:

bring a relatively small group of specialists close to the centre and give them a specific problem to work on.

WATCH ON YOUTUBE: Canada Just Created a New AI Council

Last week we talked about Ottawa’s promise to approve major projects faster.

Now we have the first major test.

On October 1, Pacific Link became the first project formally listed as being in Canada’s national interest under the Building Canada Act. Ottawa and Alberta want roughly one million barrels per day of additional pipeline capacity to the Pacific coast. PM of Canada

But the distinction from last week still matters:

Canada has approved the pipeline in principle. It has not approved a completed pipeline design for construction.

The final route, ecological work, procurement plan, costs, Indigenous consultation and ownership details are still being developed. Ottawa wants the federal conditions finalized by September 1, 2027. Pasted text

And this is where Carney’s new model becomes measurable.

The Major Projects Office was created to make these projects move faster.

Now it has one.

We get to see whether the new system actually works.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has floated the idea of Canada becoming the EU’s first “associate member.” That status does not currently exist in EU treaties, and Carney says Canada is not seeking normal EU membership.

Instead, he wants what he calls the “deepest possible partnership” covering critical minerals, defence, AI, energy, digital trade, financial services, research and greater opportunities for young Canadians and Europeans to live, work and study across the Atlantic. Read Carney’s European Parliament speech

The EU is already Canada’s second-largest trading partner after the United States, with $178.6 billion in goods and services trade in 2025. So this isn’t Canada suddenly discovering Europe. It is an attempt to build something much deeper on top of CETA and Canada’s growing defence relationship with the EU. See Canada-EU trade data

🇨🇦 LNG Canada: Phase 2 has reached a Final Investment Decision, meaning the owners have actually committed to proceed with the expansion. Capacity would double from 14 million to 28 million tonnes per year. That is a much stronger milestone than simply announcing a future project. LNG

There is an awkward Buy Canadian question, though. Major prefabricated components are expected to be manufactured overseas, including in China, because LNG Canada says the required fabrication capacity does not currently exist domestically at the necessary scale. That raises a much bigger industrial question: what does Buy Canadian mean if Canada cannot manufacture some of the things its largest projects require? Pasted text

⛽ Energy prices: The G7 has agreed to release 100 million barrels of emergency petroleum inventories over four months, with a substantial amount of diesel arriving within the first 20 days. This can ease short-term price pressure, but reserves are a bridge. They do not replace missing production or refinery capacity. PM of Canada

🗳️ B.C. election: David Eby’s NDP is proposing a new provincial income-tax bracket for people earning more than $1 million annually, with the party saying the broader package could eventually raise around $1 billion per year for health care. The exact rate structure still matters, so I would not treat that revenue forecast as guaranteed. Global News

💵 Minimum wage: Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia and P.E.I. all raised their minimum wages October 1. Most of these were relatively modest scheduled or formula-driven increases, rather than sudden large wage hikes.

Moving decisions faster sounds good.

But concentrating expertise and decision-making closer to the Prime Minister creates another question:

What happens to accountability when more of government is organized this way?

The Major Projects Office can speed up infrastructure.

The Defence Investment Agency can streamline procurement.

The new AI council can put experts directly in front of the Prime Minister.

But the faster and more centralized the system becomes, the more important it is to know who can challenge a bad decision before it becomes policy.

That’s where I go deeper in today’s Plus edition.

Is Carney actually building a more effective federal government, or simply moving more power toward

I don’t think the interesting question is whether creating new agencies is inherently good or bad.

It’s much simpler.

Do they work?

If you build an agency because procurement is too slow, procurement should get faster.

If you create a Major Projects Office because Canada takes too long to build, projects should reach construction sooner.

And if you put some of Canada’s smartest AI people around a table, eventually their advice should produce something Canadians can actually see.

That’s the standard I’m going to use.

P.S. Which one should I keep the closest eye on: the Major Projects Office, the Defence Investment Agency, Build Canada Homes or the new AI council?

Hit reply and tell me.

Until next time,

Dean