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Former Trudeau PMO staffer describes ‘power up close’ and moving the needle on gender equality in new book

Elise Maiolino says she wrote the book to highlight the previous Liberal government's 'historic' work on gender policy, and the important role of staffers who are sometimes seen as ‘second-class citizens’ in politics.

Then-prime minister Justin Trudeau, left, speaks with then-international development minister Marie-Claude Bibeau at the United Nations on Sept. 24, 2018. Marc-André Blanchard, then Canada’s UN ambassador, and now Prime Minister Mark Carney's chief of staff, is seated to her right, with Elise Maiolino pictured behind him. Photograph courtesy of Adam Scotti

Feature

BY TESSIE SANCI

July 6, 2026

It was a long-shot email for a meeting with Katie Telford—then-prime minister Justin Trudeau’s chief of staff—in 2017 that would change Elise Maiolino’s life, and bring the newly PhD-minted academic behind the curtain of the Prime Minister’s Office into a job focus...

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