Mark Carney says he has priorities for his new government — here are 5 of them

Prime Minister Mark Carney smiles as he takes his seat at his first news conference since winning the federal election, in Ottawa, Friday, May 2, 2025. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld)

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney laid out his priorities at his first postelection press conference on Friday, four days after his party won a minority mandate in the April 28 election.

Here’s a quick look at the items topping his agenda.

Building up Canadian resilience

Carney said he will head into his first tête-à-tête with U.S. President Donald Trump on May 6 anticipating “difficult but constructive discussions” on trade and security. He also said it’s an early meeting and the public should not expect immediate results.

Carney vowed to fight for the “best deal” possible for Canada and said he would take as long as necessary to get there.

Arguing that Canada can give itself “more than the Americans can take away,” he also promised to break down internal trade barriers by July 1.

“We can have a bigger boost to our economy, to incomes, to jobs, by focusing on building one Canadian economy, building these nation-building projects, by focusing on getting productivity up, by reducing revenue waste, by driving investment in this country,” he said. “We’re going to focus on that while we have these negotiations with the Americans, and if negotiations with the Americans take longer, so be it.”

In addition to the stop-and-go trade war Trump has waged for months, the mercurial president has often said he wants to make Canada a U.S. state — a pitch he repeated in a social media post on election day.

When asked how he would avoid being ambushed by Trump administration officials in the Oval Office — the way Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in early March — Carney said he will enter the meeting prepared and bring with him an understanding of Trump’s objectives.

New cabinet, new Parliament

Carney said he plans to move quickly to implement his agenda by swiftly swearing in a new cabinet with fresh faces in the week of May 12. He said he plans to stick with former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s gender parity rule that maintains an equal number of men and women in cabinet.

Parliament will resume May 26, with a speech from the throne delivered by King Charles the following day. Parliament is currently scheduled to sit through June 20.

Carney said he’ll quickly call a byelection to allow Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who lost his seat in Monday’s election, to win a new seat in Parliament.

He said he has no plans to form a governing pact with the NDP to keep his minority government alive. He said it’s time for leaders to rally together to support Canadians across the country in a time of crisis.

“We will need to work in partnerships with all the provinces, with Indigenous peoples,” he said. “In Parliament, we will need to get majority support to pass legislation.”

Cost-of-living measures

Carney has vowed to swiftly institute new tax measures and to ramp up home construction across the country.

He said his party’s pledge to slash the lowest income bracket by a full percentage point, which the Liberals have branded as a “middle class tax cut,” will take effect by Canada Day.

Carney also promised to cut the GST on new homes valued under $1 million for first-time buyers, and to expand the previous government’s dental-care program to cover eight million people.

He said that while such measures will provide immediate relief, the country needs to ramp up home building to deal with the high cost of housing.

He vowed to “create an entirely new Canadian housing industry” by promoting modular and prefab homes. He has said his government will create a new entity called “Build Canada Homes” to do this and to provide private developers with up to $25 billion in financing.

“In the coming weeks, I will unveil more of our plan to engage with Canadians as we embark on the biggest transformation of our economy since the end of the Second World War,” he said.

Spending on national security

Carney promised to hire a thousand more Canada Border Services Agency officers to beef up border security, and to bring in another thousand RCMP officers to shore up law enforcement.

He promised to toughen up bail laws for anyone charged with stealing cars, home invasion, human trafficking or smuggling.

Carney also alluded to his promise to ramp up spending on the Canadian Armed Forces. The single largest investment in his platform is a $31 billion increase in defence spending.

The prime minister has promised that his government will meet Canada’s NATO defence spending benchmark — two per cent of annual GDP for defence, a level not reached in decades — by 2030. Most of Carney’s defence commitments don’t come due under the latter part of his term in office.

Temporary immigration cap

Carney said his government will return immigration to “sustainable levels” by capping temporary workers and international students at 5 per cent of the total population by 2028, down from 7.3 per cent.

Carney said this move — promised by then-immigration minister Marc Miller under the previous government — will ease the pressure on housing and social services.

Carney has criticized the Trudeau government for letting immigration surge after the pandemic at what he called a rapid and unsustainable clip.

During his election campaign in March, he said Canada has “not lived up to the bargain” with new immigrants because of the lack of adequate housing and other supports.