Carney defends paying 2 CEO appointees upwards of $577,000 a year

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney is defending his decision to pay the CEOs of two new government offices annual salaries that are higher than his own.

The federal Conservatives have criticized the new appointments, which were announced as the federal government prepares to cut back some operational spending.

Douglas Guzman, the head of the new Defence Investment Agency, and Dawn Farrell, the head of the new Major Projects Office, will each make more than $577,000 a year. That’s the low end of their pay range and it does not include incentive pay.

Carney said their responsibilities in the two new offices — which his government created this year to speed up the slow pace of bureaucratic approvals — will be “enormous.”

Carney said Farrell will have to “help develop projects, pipelines alongside carbon capture, alongside offshore wind, new ports and other development, in a way that is going to make them happen in a fast manner, creating … tens and tens of billions of dollars of economic activity for this country.”

He said Guzman will help “grow our defence and defence-related industries on orders of magnitude,” something that requires leadership that “understands how to make that happen.”

“We’ve got to get this right. We need the best people,” Carney said when The Canadian Press asked about the appointments at a news conference in suburban Ottawa on Friday.

In a social media post this week, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre criticized Carney’s appointment of Guzman, who formerly worked in senior positions at the Royal Bank of Canada and Goldman Sachs.

Poilievre posted on X that Carney is expanding the bureaucracy and giving “banker buddies massive taxpayer-funded paycheques.”

As Carney defended his choices, he also said Farrell and Guzman are taking pay cuts as they leave the private sector.

“I think you’ll find that their pay, when they were private sector CEOs, was substantially higher than the pay ranges that they have,” Carney said, adding that other Crown corporation CEOs make amounts in that pay range.

Farrell, who hails from the energy sector, was once CEO of Trans Mountain Corp. and also previously headed up TransAlta Corp.

The salaries of Farrell and Guzman are outlined as pay ranges in their appointment documents — orders-in-council approved by cabinet — with the upper range fixed at $679,100.

That does not include performance pay incentives.

The maximum performance award at their level — Crown corporation CEO 8 — is 33 per cent of their salary, according to information published online by the Privy Council Office.

When Farrell testified before the House of Commons environment committee on Thursday, Bloc Québécois MP Patrick Bonin asked what she will make in annual salary.

Farrell said she’s “not really sure” but it’s somewhere “in the range of $700,000” a year with the pay incentives.

The prime minister himself makes nearly $420,000, while his ministers and secretaries of state make $309,700 a year, according to information published by the Library of Parliament.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 10, 2025.

Kyle Duggan, The Canadian Press