Maia Johnson will become chief operating officer in Prime Minister Mark Carney's Office, adding that title to her existing job as senior adviser for Canada-U.S. relations, The Globe and Mail reported The Globe and Mail. Johnson's professional ties to Carney predate his time in politics, going back to his work on climate finance for the United Nations The Globe and Mail.

The appointment is one piece of a broader reshuffle inside the PMO. Scott Gilmore, currently senior adviser on foreign, defence and security policy, is being promoted to principal secretary later this month, according to three sources who spoke to The Globe and Mail The Globe and Mail. Tim Krupa, who has served as director of policy, moves up to deputy chief of staff and chief economist. Jennifer McIntyre, most recently an assistant deputy minister for international affairs and crisis response at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, joins the PMO as deputy chief of staff focused on international affairs.

Andrée-Lyne Hallé stays on as deputy chief of staff. Chief of staff Marc-André Blanchard and Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Sabia remain in their positions, giving the top layer of the PMO continuity even as several roles beneath them change hands.

The moves were set off by two departures. Carney appointed his previous principal secretary, Tom Pitfield, to the Senate. Separately, deputy chief of staff Braeden Caley confirmed on Sunday that he is leaving the PMO to seek the Liberal nomination in North Vancouver–Capilano The Globe and Mail. The Prime Minister's Office declined to comment on the new roles when asked by the Globe.

The creation of a chief operating officer post inside the PMO is itself notable. It's not a title that has had a fixed place in the standard Canadian PMO org chart, which has traditionally run on the chief of staff/principal secretary/deputy chief of staff hierarchy familiar from the Harper, Trudeau and now Carney years. Layering a COO function onto a sitting senior adviser for Canada-U.S. relations suggests Carney's office wants someone managing internal operations and sequencing without pulling that person off the Canada-U.S. file, which has remained the PMO's most consuming portfolio through the current trade and tariff dispute with Washington.

Gilmore's elevation to principal secretary tracks with Pitfield's Senate appointment creating an opening at the top table, and it keeps foreign, defence and security expertise close to the centre of the office at a moment when Canada is managing NATO commitments, Arctic security questions and the U.S. relationship simultaneously. Krupa's move to deputy chief of staff and chief economist folds fiscal and policy analysis more tightly into the chief-of-staff structure, a pairing that hasn't always existed as a formal title in past PMOs.

Caley's departure fits a familiar pattern of PMO staff stepping down to run for nomination, though it does mean the office loses a deputy chief of staff mid-mandate. McIntyre's arrival from IRCC brings a bureaucrat with crisis-response and international-affairs experience into a political staff role, which is less common than the reverse traffic of political staffers moving into the public service.

None of the changes have been announced formally by the Prime Minister's Office, and the Globe's reporting relies on sources rather than a PMO statement. That leaves effective dates for some of the moves, particularly Gilmore's, described only as "later this month." Carney's office has not said whether further changes to the senior staff roster are expected, or whether Caley's deputy chief of staff role will be filled by an external hire or absorbed among the remaining deputies.