Office of the Prime Minister (Canada) December 21, 2015, the new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was still in the process of hiring staff. However, he announced some key positions as well as his office's directorates: The Office of the Prime Minister was a fairly weak and secondary group before Pierre Trudeau became prime minister in 1968, after whose appointment much of what had previously been the responsibility of the Privy Council Office was shifted to the PMO. After that point, the PMO became more central to the government, and many of Trudeau's economic and constitutional initiatives were launched with the aid and advice of its staff.
Office of the Prime Minister (Canada) Progressive Conservative (Tory) Prime Minister Brian Mulroney similarly had a powerful and active PMO, preferring advice he received from his staff than that which came from civil servants (whom he considered to be Liberal-leaning), or from those in the fractious Tory party. After Jean Chrétien was appointed as prime minister, the PMO continued to be the central organ of the government. Chrétien greatly depended upon the PMO, especially his chief of staff, Jean Pelletier, who ran the office from 1993 to 2001, Percy Downe, who served as his director of appointments from 1998 to 2001 and chief of staff from