Braeden Caley, deputy chief of staff to Prime Minister Mark Carney, arrives on Parliament Hill before a meeting of the federal cabinet in Ottawa, on June 9, 2026. The Canadian Press/Justin Tang
Prime Minister Mark Carney is losing another key member of his office as his deputy chief of staff leaves to seek a House of Commons seat.
Braeden Caley made the announcement in an open resignation letter on July 12, in which he thanks Carney and says he’ll seek the Liberal Party nomination in an unspecified B.C. riding.
“As I consider a new way to contribute to this team, I’m inspired that this is a country that keeps arriving at places that many have doubted we could ever reach,” Caley wrote.
He noted the recently announced agreement between Ottawa and his home province of B.C. as a personal “highlight” of his time in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Ottawa made a number of infrastructure commitments to the province on the same day it announced the plan for the new West Coast pipeline with Alberta, which the B.C. NDP government has opposed.
The only vacant riding in British Columbia is North Vancouver—Capilano. Former Cabinet Minister Jonathan Wilkinson resigned the seat on June 19 to serve as Canada’s ambassador to the European Union.
Wilkinson easily won the seat in the past four general elections, and current polling projections show the Liberal Party with a sizeable lead.
North Vancouver—Capilano is among several ridings that have become vacant in recent weeks. No dates have been announced yet for byelections.
In the case of North Vancouver—Capilano and the Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton riding in Quebec, the prime minister has to call byelections before Dec. 19. The Quebec riding is free as former Bloc Québécois MP Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay is running provincially for the Parti Québécois.
Other vacant ridings include Beaches—East York in Toronto, which was held by Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, and Chicoutimi—Le Fjord in Quebec, previously held by Tory MP Richard Martel who is heading to the Senate.
Caley’s departure from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is the second high-level departure in recent days. Carney last week made his first senate nominations, which include Martel and Thomas Pitfield.
Pitfield ran Carney’s political campaigns and served as his principal secretary until July 13.
Pitfield is the co-founder of progressive think tank Canada 2020, for which Braeden Caley previously served as executive director. Carney served as advisory board chair of the organization around the same time Caley was its leader.
Caley also has experience on Parliament Hill as a Liberal Party constituency staffer.
“It handed me the best education in democracy I could ever receive: that a strong country is served one person, one problem, one kept promise at a time,” he said about the experience.
The PMO is undergoing a shuffle amid the recent departures, while two top advisers to Carney stay in place: Marc-André Blanchard as chief of staff and Michael Sabia as clerk of the Privy Council.
