Cabinet ministers Dominic LeBlanc, front left to right, Melanie Joly, Francois-Philippe Champagne, Anita Anand, Patty Hajdu, Steven Guilbeault and Sean Fraser applaud during a cabinet swearing-in ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on May 13.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press

From a distance, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new cabinet looks like change.

It’s structured differently; there are 28 full ministers and 10 secretaries of state, the latter of whom will have smaller departments, smaller salaries and will only occasionally sit at the cabinet table.

There are new faces; more than half of the people comprising this cabinet have never been ministers in the federal government.

And the roles have been shaken up; few have stayed in their previous files, with the exception of François-Philippe Champagne, Chrystia Freeland and Dominic LeBlanc, who remain Finance Minister, Transport and Internal Trade Minister, and Privy Council President and Minister of International Trade, respectively.

So yes, this looks like change: new structure, new faces, new jobs. Change – exactly what Canadians asked for, right?

But when you get a little closer and start looking at who remains in cabinet, and which roles they have been assigned, this starts to look an awful lot like a Trudeau cabinet – just with a different prime minister.

It’s clear now that the 23-minister cabinet that

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