2024–25 with Prime Minister Trudeau, in photos
Photos by Adam Scotti
2024-March 14, 2025
I started working on this photo retrospective in September 2024. With various events leading up to the end of the year, I didn’t feel as if I had a complete story — summarizing a year simply based on a date did not seem to work this time around.
And then Prime Minister Trudeau announced his intention to step down on January 6th 2025.
With this job, any given year can have its highs and lows. In 2024, the highs were high, and the lows were maybe a little lower than normal. I often remind myself that every day is a privilege to do what I do, no matter what might be happening. History is history and I am lucky enough to say that I was in the thick of it for the last fifteen years.
Ukraine — 2nd anniversary of Russian invasion
Saying goodbye to Mr. Mulroney
A long time ago, my father, Bill McCarthy, worked as Prime Minister Mulroney’s photographer. I have my mother’s last name, and I took to calling him ‘Bill’ after working many weddings with him where he simply wouldn’t respond to ‘dad’ when he was focused on his work.
As plans for a state funeral progressed, Bill was asked by the Mulroney family to help document his boss one last time. Knowing Bill had been out of the working photo world for a while, I offered to help and the family very graciously welcomed me in.
For the next few weeks I was busy documenting the country’s final goodbye to Mr. Mulroney. To be able to work with my dad during his last assignment was special.
After growing up hearing stories of the Mulroneys and Bill’s colleagues, it was fun to see my father be with the team once again. Stories were shared, laughs were had, and tears were shed. A proper Irish goodbye.
Mar-a-Lago
December 16, 2024
2025
January 6, 2025
Visiting the King
Last speech as Liberal Leader
Last day in West Block
Resignation day
Final thoughts
It is funny to think back to when staffers or MPs would very kindly offer to sit down with me and offer career tips. “Ok, you’re taking photos, but what do you really want to do?” Thankfully, it was never like that with Justin.
I first ran into the now-former PM in 2010 at a McGill Model United Nations conference where his assistant asked if I would be interested in taking photos on a volunteer basis. A year later, I was emailing the constituency office to ask if I could help out on the 2011 campaign despite writing my final exams at the same time. A year after that, Justin was driving us between events in Montreal and told me he would be running for the leadership of the Liberal Party. Fifteen years after my first fundraising photo assignment, here I am.
Each step of the way seemed to open up another crazy adventure. I did not set out to have this job despite growing up around it through my father. Looking back on old photos often makes me cringe because I could have photographed things differently. I hope to have done right by this job and the team.
I am forever grateful that Justin and the people around him have understood the nature of the PMO photographer as archivist and the importance of letting us carve out a spot for ourselves in the office. We were left to split up the work as needed and were trusted to document days, meetings or events to the best of our ability while staying true to the idea of “visual historians.” I strongly believe that this trust and autonomy led to such a genuine and important historical record.
I have been asked a few times if I would consider staying to work for the next Prime Minister. Sure, it sounds exciting and 15 years ago I would’ve jumped at the opportunity, but I made a promise to the two most special people in my life, my wife and daughter, that I would be done when Justin was done. They have both sacrificed or given up so much for me to follow this crazy job. Missed birthdays, missed dinners, missed bedtime stories. At random, and to random people, my daughter very excitedly says that when “dad loses his job” I will be home much more. I can’t wait.
The next few months will be an adjustment. No more travel, watching politics from the outside, my own bed each and every night, reconnecting with friends and actually having a routine. A routine! What a concept!
When my father left PMO in 1992, he spent his mornings napping and his afternoons with 3-year-old me at the pool in Malaysia during our family’s first posting overseas. Seems only fitting I resume that swimming routine this summer both with him and my daughter.
Archives wise, I have a fair bit of work ahead to tidy up my files as I hand them over to Library and Archives Canada. The system I have now was not really refined until 2018, so I will have to go back to review and caption everything to a more consistent standard. I can’t wait to get to know the team at LAC more. I visited their team earlier in 2025 and they welcomed my kiddo and I with photos my father had taken. They are a small but mighty team that dedicate their careers to Canadian history.
After that? I am open to suggestions. I am playing around with a few ideas for a book or two looking back on my experience, or even maybe one with my father.
It is hard to quantify what a political staffer does to outsiders as we apply for the next job. Photography has been fun and will forever be part of my life, but I can also see myself moving on to a different career. Perhaps I’ll rediscover photography through special projects alongside some other job.
Team
In my immediate office, I worked alongside photographer Lars Hagberg and videographers Akshay Grover and Daniel Pereira. A special thank you to Lars for giving me the support to be able to cover these last weeks as best I could.
Our social media wizards are Jordan Collacutt and Maddy Robert.
On a day-to-day basis, I worked closest with the PM’s assistants, Phil Proulx and Mark Kachuck and Katie Telford’s assistants, Jackie Lee and Annyse Hawkins.
Phil and Mark quickly became my people. Working so closely together, day in and day out, we are each others’ most important sounding boards, cheerleaders and therapists. I could not have done this for as long as I have if it were not for them.
Katie Telford, Chief of Staff, and Vanessa Hage-Moussa, Director of Communications, were my direct bosses. Thankfully they are very supportive of my work and gave me a lot of room to do my own thing.
Katie and the PM let me carve out a unique space for myself. I was in every room first and foremost as a photographer, but they encouraged me to grow into a multi-role political staffer. I could help any one of the teams in the office ranging from communications to event ideas or even sitting at Harrington Lake to discuss the resignation of a Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister’s office feels like a small family with many moving parts. Advance, planning, scheduling, communications, issues management, outreach, correspondence, policy, appointments — I pester everyone with questions so I can stay on top of what is going on and what is on the horizon. Thank you all for the work you do and for putting up with me.
I often joke that I see members of the Prime Minister’s Protective Detail and the RCMP more than I see my own family. We spend hours on planes, trains, and automobiles together, not to mention hallways and waiting rooms. Thank you for all the help and for all the laughs (or eyerolls).
Our team worked the most with staff in the Privy Council office, the Canadian Forces, Global Affairs, House of Commons and many more. So many people in the public service show up each and every day to work for Canada and their fellow Canadians. Their dedication and service is forever inspiring.
Ottawa airport chauffeuring services provided by Bill McCarthy. Thanks, Bill (dad), for the countless lessons and stories. I am perfectly content to call a cab, but Bill offered to drive me out as much as he could in the final months. Our morning or late night drives turned out to be a great time to catch up during what was a very hectic time. Of course, this would not be possible without my mother, Annamaria, the original ‘wife to the prime minister’s photographer’ in the house who is the bedrock of our family.
A special thank you to the team and friends I have made at CrossFit Bytown. I look forward to spending a lot more time laughing at all your bad jokes as we find new ways to wreck ourselves.
If you have made it this far and are curious what previous year-in-reviews looked like: 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023.
Thanks, J, it has been the honour a lifetime to serve with you.
Equipment and storage
My regular equipment is as follows: 2 Sony a9ii, 1 Sony a7Riv, Sony 16–35 f2.8, Sony 24–70 f2.8, Sony 70–200 f2.8.
Due to storage constraints, I do two rounds of deleting images as I narrow down what to edit and archive. One on my camera, the second on my computer. Using the “protect” function, I mark all the photos for saving on my camera before erasing the rest. Once on my computer, I sort through the remainder in Adobe Lightroom.
In all, I’ve filed around 50,000 photos between January 2024 to March 14— meaning I have personally captured, edited and captioned each one. Being a one person show when on photo duty, I try my best to caption the images as thoroughly as possible and tag them with peoples’ names for archiving and future research purposes.
We maintain folders for each one of the MPs and Ministers in the government, as well as specific folders for staff (PCO, Senior Staff and PMO), Security (RCMP/Canadian Forces, Parliament) and support staff. (note: please remember to download all your photos!)
Raw and jpegs are stored on both LaCie Rugged drives that I shelve once filled, and multiple RAID units in different locations. It is not a backup if you only have one copy!!
Post politics, I hope to service my father’s old Leica lenses one day to try my hand with those, but that may be retirement project further down the line. I have bought different adapters to put them on my non-Leica bodies over the years but it just isn’t the same.
Photographers are often asked what is their favourite photo they have taken. Honestly, we may have a favourite photo for a split second, but it is the drive to get the next great image that keeps us going back for more.
fin.
