Toronto MP Bill Blair to resign and become high commissioner to U.K.
Two sources confirmed the MP for Scarborough Southwest was set to formally resign his seat on Monday.
Former Liberal cabinet minister and Toronto police chief Bill Blair is resigning from Parliament to become Canada’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, the Star has learned.
Two sources confirmed the MP for Scarborough Southwest was set to formally resign his seat on Monday, while Blair did not immediately respond to the Star’s request for comment.
At the same time, the Prime Minister’s Office was set to announce that Nathalie Drouin — the National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the prime minister, first appointed under Justin Trudeau — will leave the role to take up Canada’s ambassadorship to France and Monaco.
The appointments are expected to take effect at some point this spring.
Blair is the second Trudeau-era cabinet minister from Toronto to leave in recent weeks, setting up the need for two federal byelections in the city. Chrystia Freeland, who was Trudeau’s deputy prime minister and finance minister before losing to Mark Carney in last year’s race for the Liberal leadership, stepped down from her seat in University—Rosedale in January and took a job advising the Ukrainian government amidst the country’s war with Russia.
The Liberals announced over the weekend that Danielle Martin, a doctor and chair of the University of Toronto’s family medicine program,
will be their candidate in University—Rosedale.
The Star has not confirmed who will run in the coming byelection for other major parties.
There is also interest in Blair’s riding from Liberal circles in Toronto. The Star reported last year that John Tory Jr., son of the former mayor, is
interested in running for the Liberals somewhere in the city, and possibly in Scarborough Southwest.
The byelections will be closely watched since the Carney Liberals are just shy of a majority in the House of Commons, with 169 of 343 seats.
Both vacant ridings have a history of electing Liberals. Scarborough Southwest, which has changed boundaries over the past decades, has been held by a Liberal for all but four years since 1997. University—Rosedale has elected Liberals since it was created out of existing ridings in 2015.
The parliamentary balance of power is also at play after two Conservative MPs — Nova Scotia’s Chris d’Entremont and Markham—Unionville’s Michael Ma — defected to the Liberal benches and bolstered the government’s numbers in the Commons.
Elected for the first time with the Liberal majority under Justin Trudeau in 2015, Blair held several cabinet portfolios over the next decade, including as minister for border security, public safety and — most recently — national defence.
Blair lost that portfolio in May when Prime Minister Mark Carney shuffled his cabinet after the Liberals returned to power with a minority government in last year’s federal election.
