Gerald Michael Butts (born July 8, 1971) is a Canadian executive and former policy advisor to governments and political leaders.

He served as the Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau from November 4, 2015 until his resignation on February 18, 2019.

[2][3][4] From 2008 to 2012, he was president and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund Canada,[5] part of a global conservation organization.

There, he helped organize MacEachen's past correspondence for the purposes of his intended memoirs (which in the event were never written).

As one of his biographical notes describes it, Butts "was intimately involved in all of the government’s significant environmental initiatives, from the Greenbelt and Boreal Conservation plan to the coal phase-out and toxic reduction strategy".

On September 21, 2016, The Globe and Mail reported that Butts had charged moving expenses to Canadian taxpayers in the amount of $126,669.56 to relocate his residence from Toronto to Ottawa.

[22] On February 18, 2019, Butts stepped down as Trudeau's principal secretary and stated that it was to defend himself from allegations made against him in relation to the SNC-Lavalin affair and to avoid drawing attention away from the prime minister's work.

[4] In a statement released on Twitter, Butts denied influencing the Attorney General and noted that he specifically recruited Jody Wilson-Raybould to join the Liberal Party of Canada and was an avid supporter during both her candidacy and her tenure as a minister.

[24] In July 2019, Prime Minister Trudeau hired Butts back to play a key role in the Liberal 2019 election campaign.