Housing Minister Sean Fraser will announce on Monday that he will not seek re-election in his Nova Scotia riding and will leave the federal cabinet during the next shuffle, CBC News has learned.
Sources say that cabinet shuffle could happen as soon as Wednesday.
The push to change Justin Trudeau’s inner circle before the Christmas holidays comes as the prime minister and his senior advisers mount yet another effort to convince former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney to join the cabinet, according to multiple high-level Liberal sources.
The ongoing attempts to convince Carney to join cabinet were first reported by the Globe and Mail. Liberal sources tell CBC News that Carney has been more open to the idea than in the past, but it is still not a done deal.
But as they try to add Carney, the Prime Minister’s Office is also preparing to lose Fraser — widely seen as one of the Liberals’ best communicators — who has been handling the politically important housing ministry.
Sources say Fraser is leaving for family reasons, something he has commented on publicly before. The time and travel required by his portfolio makes it difficult to spend time in his rural Nova Scotia riding with his wife, eight-year-old daughter and three-year-old son.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and Housing Minister Sean Fraser had an increasingly heated exchange in question period Tuesday, which started with Poilievre asking about his own promise to remove the GST on new homes sold for less than $1 million. The two men went on to call each other arrogant and incompetent.
Fraser has represented the riding of Central Nova in the House of Commons since 2015. His departure compounds the need for Trudeau to add new blood to his cabinet.
He already has to replace ministers who do not plan to seek re-election – including Marie-Claude Bibeau, the minister of national revenue; Carla Qualtrough, the minister of sport; Filomena Tassi, the minister for economic development for southern Ontario; and Minister of Northern Affairs Dan Vandal.
More to come.
