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Ford gave the veteran civil servant and former hospital president a shout-out last Friday at a new medical clinic at Richmond Hill.  

“Michelle makes the machinery of the government move. She does an incredible job day in and day out and she doesn’t get enough acknowledgment,” the premier said.

“By the way, she works 365 days a year, 24 hours a day it seems — and she’s had many late night calls from me as well.”

The extended appointment to June 30, 2028 was detailed in an order-in-council this week.

DiEmanuele, a deputy minister under former Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty, was named by Ford to the top public service job in May 2021.

At the time, she had been working as president and CEO of Trillium Health Partners, the Peel hospital system that is one of Ontario’s largest. In that job she led the voluntary merger of Credit Valley Hospital and the Trillium Health Centre. 

Her appointment was hailed across the political spectrum as the province began to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Michelle is whip smart, thoughtful and respected — the perfect type of leader to guide Ontario’s public service as we begin our recovery,” Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie, then the mayor of Mississauga, said four years ago.

Similarly, Gerald Butts, a key architect of the elections of Liberal prime ministers Mark Carney and Justin Trudeau as well as McGuinty’s premiership, praised her in 2021 as “a top drawer pro of a public servant.”

Known as a no-nonsense administrator, DiEmanuele has been lauded for improving the diversity of the highest ranks of the civil service.

In 2007, McGuinty seconded her to the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation to help clean up a then-troubled Crown agency roiling from a scandal involving questionable insider lottery wins that had been highlighted by the auditor general. 

DiEmanuele’s previous posts in the Ontario civil service include associate secretary of the cabinet, deputy minister of human resources, chair of the Public Service Commission, deputy minister of government and consumer services and secretary to the management board.

In the private sector, she was vice-president of branch and small business banking at CIBC and a vice-president at Brookfield Properties Ltd.