Side by Side: How Many Ministers Sit at the Table?

Paul St-Pierre Plamondon was sworn in as Quebec’s premier on Wednesday and named 22 ministers, against 28 in the outgoing cabinet, in keeping with a pledge to “reduce the size of government,” Global News reports. He kept the homelessness file for himself. The question for the doorman: how many people does each government seat in its cabinet, the head of government included, by its own official list this year?

United States

Twenty-three, says the White House: the president, the vice president, the heads of the 15 executive departments and six cabinet-level officials, from the trade representative to the director of the CIA. The director of national intelligence has a chair as well. Intelligence is the only subject with two seats at the table, and neither is for the artificial kind.

Canada

The federal list, last modified on 25 September, names 27 ministers, so 28 with the prime minister, plus 10 secretaries of state who help without sitting in cabinet. One of the 28 is the Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation. Ottawa’s cabinet is now exactly the size Quebec City has just decided was too big.

United Kingdom

GOV.UK lists 23 cabinet ministers, the prime minister among them, and five more who attend cabinet without being members, one of them the Minister for Artificial Intelligence. That makes 28 in the room, level with Ottawa. Britain has found a way to enlarge a cabinet without enlarging it.

Japan

Nineteen, the prime minister included, on the Kantei’s list as of 15 October, for a cabinet inaugurated on 17 September whose agriculture minister has already been replaced once. The titles make up for the headcount. The economy, trade and industry minister also answers for AI transformation among six other lines; the digital minister’s portfolios run on to space and ocean policy; the environment minister handles bear countermeasures. The smallest table of the five, and the busiest chairs.

India

Thirty-one cabinet ministers including the prime minister, inside a Council of Ministers of 71, on the Cabinet Secretariat’s list as on 23 June 2026: the rest are 5 ministers of state with independent charge and 35 ministers of state. The prime minister also holds “All other portfolios not allocated to any Minister.” The largest table here, and it still keeps a drawer for whatever nobody has been given.

Verdict

Washington seats 23, Westminster 23 plus five guests, Ottawa 28, Tokyo 19 and New Delhi 31, with 40 more ministers waiting in the corridor. Ottawa and London have each given artificial intelligence one minister, Tokyo has given it two part-time, and Washington has given it none. Every one of these governments would say its table is exactly the right size for the work. Quebec removed six chairs to prove it means to shrink the state, and its table still seats more than Japan’s.