In Canada, the principal secretary is a senior aide, often the most senior political aide, to a head of government. Formerly, the position of principal secretary was the most senior one in the Canadian Prime Minister's office (PMO). However, since 1987, it has been second to the chief of staff position.
The role of the principal secretary may vary, depending on how the prime minister or premier structures the workflow in their office. This has sometimes led to ambiguity in clearly defining the distinction between the roles of principal secretary and chief of staff to the general public.[2]
History and list of principal secretaries to the prime minister
Depending on the personal approach and preferences of the prime minister, the duties of managing, administrating and co-ordinating the activities of the PMO may belong to the Principal Secretary, the Chief of Staff, or another key advisor. The Government of Canada does not maintain official public records of those who held leadership positions in the PMO. The Parliament's official website has a non-exhaustive list of "Leadership of the Prime Minister's Office", with likely no defined criteria for inclusion (as evident by the inclusion of a large numbers of "senior advisors" in Justin Trudeau's PMO while omitting the two deputy chief of staff who ranked above them).
This list is broken into three portions. The first section lists the prime ministerial aides that were identified by historical sources as the leading aide or most influential advisor to the prime minister before political aides to prime ministers were formally instituted. The second portion, from 1968 to 1987, lists the partisan appointees serving formally while the title was formally and consistently used to denote the principal political advisor to the prime minister and the formal head of the of the PMO staff. Finally, the third portion lists the title holders since 1987, when the title chief of staff formally supplanted principal secretary as the top ranking post in PMO.
Before 1960s - Prime Ministers' senior private secretaries
The list in this sub-section consists of prime ministerial aides who were identified as the primary or most politically influential aides or advisors to the prime ministers they served. Following the political practice in the UK, they were mostly titled as private secretaries. While the title principal secretary is listed for some of the entries, they are mostly based on informal reference in biographies published or documents produced decades later to denote their leading status, with few contemporary source corroborating any formal usage.
The cadre of partisan appointees serving as aide to senior political leaders in their private offices and the formal separations of them from career civil servants are both fairly recent phenomenon, reflecting the gradual shift from Whitehall political practice in the United Kingdom (where partisan temporary appointees serving as aides to cabinet members, titled "special advisors", was not instituted until 1997, and remain fewer than 150 as of 2025) toward the political practice in the US. While there were always partisans among those who served as assistants to the prime minister, there were little formal distinction between them and career civil servants prior to the 1960s, and many individuals traversed the two spheres.
1968-1987 - Principal Secretary as top ranking member of Prime Minister's Office
Marc Lalonde, an associate of Pierre Trudeau in the early 1950s, was recruited to be Lester Pearson's policy advisor in 1967. He was credited for a significant roles in orchestrating Trudeau's bid for leadership,[3][4] and was formally conferred the title Principal Secretary following Trudeau's victory at the 1968 leadership convention. A distinct staff of partisan aides was formalized during the early years of Trudeau's premiership, and PMO staff grew from a handful of aides to dozens of political operatives. The rapid development of this staff was partially due to the unique circumstances brought by October Crisis, requiring Lalonde to build a larger team within PMO to handle operations that may not be tenable have assigned to civil servants.[5] Lalonde's role representing the prime minister to Quebec premier Robert Bourassa and Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau during the crisis also significantly solidified the chief aide's formal authority in speaking on behalf of the prime minister. At Trudeau's urging, Lalonde ran for and won a seat in the election following the crisis and immediately entered cabinet. The succession by Martin O'Connell, recent Labour Minister who was defeated at the same election (who went on to regain his seat in parliament and in cabinet later), as principal secretary further solidified the role's formal authority.
Since 1987 - Principal Secretary as senior counsellor
During Bernard Roy's tenure as Brian Mulroney's principal secretary, the title of Chief of Staff was formally instituted and supplanted the principal secretary as the top ranking member of the Prime Minister's office.
Roy, a personal confidant of Mulroney who had held the title of principal secretary since Mulroney's election in 1984, was seen as an ineffective administrator lacking strong political instinct, and was blamed for the precipitous drops of progressive conservative's Quebec polling numbers (from 50% in the 1984 election to 17% in 1987), a province Roy was responsible for. His background as one of Mulroney's closest friends was also inconvenient fodder when the opposition focused their attack on cronyism and sleaze. Mulroney, who famously extoled personal loyalty as a cherished virtue announced in March 1987 that Derek Burney, a career diplomat who was at the time an assistant under-secretary of state at the Department of External Affairs (comparable to a modern day assistant deputy minister in Global Affairs Canada), would be seconded to PMO to be the Prime Minister's chief of staff, and Roy would retain the title but would relinquish administrative leadership of PMO to focus on or more political matters.
Since 1987, the principal secretary title remained in use intermittently, and usually by a trusted personal confident of the sitting Prime Minister with seniority comparable to or just below the chief of staff's. Prime Minister Jean Chretien did not name a principal secretary during his decade-long premiership. Prime Ministers Stephen Harper appointed close associate Ray Novak (who famously lived rent-free above the garage at Stornoway when Harper was Leader of the Opposition) to the role, and left the role vacant after Novak was promoted to the top job. Similarly, Justin Trudeau named no replacement in the six years following the departure of principal secretary Gerald Butts, a close confidant since their university days.
Son of Michael Pitfield, former Clerk of the Privy Council and Senator; husband of Anna Gainey, MP for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount and secretary of state in the Carney ministry
The circumstance of the transitions between Pitfield and Lametti remains unclear and was subject to much speculation and intrigue. Pitfield likely continue to exercise the authority of principal secretary when Lametti was formally in the role.
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