Since taking office on March 14, 2025, Prime Minister Mark Carney has spent much of his first eight months abroad. His travels have taken him to France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, Latvia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Vatican City, as well as the United States, Mexico, Egypt, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea.

After the April 28 election, Parliament reconvened on May 26 and resumed its fall sitting on Sept. 15. Since then, Carney has attended only 16 sitting days in the House of Commons.

While the prime minister has been overseas, Ottawa has been expanding its bureaucracy through a wave of new agencies and offices. The Defence Investment Agency, announced Oct. 2, 2025, adds to more than $6 billion in planned defence spending for 2025-26, though startup costs have not been disclosed. The proposed Canada Financial Crimes Agency, part of an anti-money-laundering initiative, is receiving $2 million in initial funding over two years, in addition to nearly $90 million to bolster the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada. A response group has been set up to manage plant closures at General Motors’ Ingersoll facility, and a new housing agency will oversee a $13-billion fund for affordable construction.

Canada’s public service has expanded by roughly 43 per cent since 2015 — growing from about 257,000 employees to more than 367,000 — as new programs and oversight layers multiply. Critics argue that these new offices add red tape and government interference without producing economic value, shifting costs onto taxpayers rather than delivering direct benefits.

Carney’s government has also changed the budget cycle, moving the federal budget release to the fall instead of the spring and introducing a new framework that separates operational spending from capital investment. Despite the updated presentation, both categories remain taxpayer-funded expenditures.

Economists forecast that the 2025-26 fiscal year will bring one of Canada’s largest peacetime deficits, projected between $70 billion and $100 billion. Eight months into Carney’s tenure, Ottawa’s expanding bureaucracy, persistent travel and deepening deficit point to a government that is growing in size and cost — but not yet in results