Toronto can expect two federal by-elections in the near future
Long-time Liberal MP Bill Blair announced his resignation yesterday and will relocate to the UK for a different role
Long-time Liberal MP and former Toronto police chief Bill Blair has resigned from Parliament and is set to become Canada’s next high commissioner to the United Kingdom. He’ll be based in London for the role as of this spring.
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In a statement issued yesterday, Prime Minister Mark Carney said that Blair’s move is part of a wider diplomatic strategy. “Canada’s new government is deepening our relationships with long-standing, reliable allies. France and the United Kingdom are two of Canada’s deepest partners in defence, security, and commerce,” said the statement, which also announced that Nathalie Drouin will become Canada’s ambassador to France and Monaco.
Carney’s statement noted that, “in 2024, the UK was Canada’s third-largest single-country trading partner for goods and services, with trade valued at $61 billion.”
A by-election will now need to be called for Blair’s Scarborough Southwest riding, in addition to the by-election required to replace Chrystia Freeland in University-Rosedale. Freeland left her position earlier this year to take a role as an unpaid economic development adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
