A prominent conservative figure in American politics and the mastermind behind Project 2025 — the infamous policy blueprint that proposed a drastic overhaul of the U.S. government — was invited to speak to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s cabinet behind closed doors Thursday but is no longer making the trip north.
Carney and his ministers are in the Greater Toronto Area for two days of meetings ahead of the fall parliamentary sitting. According to the list of guest speakers, the Liberal team was supposed to hear from Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank that has shaped Republican administrations since the 1980s.
It’s the group that spearheaded Project 2025, a 900-page manifesto meant to usher in a new ultra-conservative administration supported by more than 100 like-minded organizations.
Some of its most controversial elements include firing thousands of permanent civil servants and replacing them with hired loyalists, abolishing the Department of Education and withdrawing the abortion pill mifepristone from the market. It also states that “married men and women are the ideal, natural family structure because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them.”
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne was asked Thursday about Kevin Roberts, president of the conservative U.S.-based Heritage Foundation and an architect of the controversial Project 2025 who was invited to speak to the federal cabinet but is no longer set to attend.
“Regrettably, Dr. Roberts’ office indicated that he can no longer join us to present today,” said a spokesperson from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Thursday.
“Our team will continue further engagement and discussions with him and other leading U.S. policy figures soon, regarding Canada’s economic and security relationship with the United States.”
A spokesperson for Roberts said he “appreciated the invitation” but is unable to attend “and will be working in Washington.”
Leading up to the 2024 presidential election, Roberts said his country was in the midst of a “second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Project 2025 is built on four main promises: restore the family as the centrepiece of American life; dismantle the administrative state; defend the nation’s sovereignty and borders; and secure God-given individual rights to enjoy liberty.
It’s been criticized as “an authoritarian playbook” and a “far-right assault on America” by policy institute The Centre for American Progress.
A conservative think tank document called Project 2025 is fueling fierce attacks in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election. CBC’s Lauren Bird cuts through the noise and breaks down the policy, who’s behind it, and why it’s so controversial.
The document was written before U.S. President Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination. Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 during the campaign, but has since welcomed several of its authors to his staff.
Some of Trump’s policies to date have echoed Project 2025’s goals, including gutting government departments, cracking down on immigration and using his office to target his enemies.
The PMO explained the invite Wednesday saying Roberts knows the Trump administration’s playbook and is a central player. (Roberts’s book Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America includes a foreword written by U.S. Vice-President JD Vance)
The cabinet is also expected to hear from former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, now his country’s ambassador to the U.S. Carney’s office said he will speak to cabinet about China’s rise “and new approaches to multipolarity.”
Carney’s cabinet will also hear from pollster Jean-Marc Léger on the mood of the country, Scotiabank’s Jean-François Perrault for an economic outlook and private sector leaders, including an artificial intelligence-focused venture capital firm.
