Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc says he will not be running to become the next leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Monday that he planned to step down as Liberal leader and as prime minister once the party selects its new leader. LeBlanc, who was appointed to the finance minister’s post last month, has taken himself out of the running.
He was among the individuals believed to be potential contenders in a race.
“While I am extremely grateful for the encouragement and the expressions of support I have received from caucus colleagues and Liberals across the country, I have decided not to be a candidate in the Liberal Party of Canada’s upcoming leadership race,” LeBlanc said in a statement.
LeBlanc said he was going to focus his full attention on his job as finance minister and minister of intergovernmental affairs to co-ordinate a federal response to the threat of tariffs from an incoming Donald Trump administration in the United States.
“The threat that these tariffs pose to our nation’s economic well-being and to the livelihood of a countless number of Canadian families cannot be understated – and as such, it requires nothing less than my full attention,” he said.
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However, LeBlanc said he will still seek re-election as a member of Parliament under a new Liberal leader and intends to run in the upcoming federal election campaign this year.
LeBlanc was appointed to the post of finance minister after Chrystia Freeland quit the job hours before she was to table the fall economic statement in the House of Commons last month.
LeBlanc ran for Liberal leader in 2008, but withdrew shortly after, throwing his support behind Michael Ignatieff, who led the Liberals to their worst-ever performance in the 2011 election.
Following Ignatieff’s resignation in 2012, LeBlanc was seen as a potential party leader. However, he supported Trudeau’s bid to lead the party then.
In 2015, he was appointed leader of the government in the House of Commons by Trudeau.
Throughout his time in the Trudeau cabinet, LeBlanc has held eight different portfolios at different times, his latest role being minister of finance.
LeBlanc is the son of former governor general Romeo LeBlanc and a personal friend of Trudeau’s, and has been the MP for the New Brunswick riding of Beausejour since 2000.
He is Acadian.
LeBlanc is a two-time cancer survivor — he was diagnosed in April 2017 with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and was declared in “complete remission” by fall 2018, and then was diagnosed and treated for non-Hodgkin lymphoma in April 2019 before returning to cabinet in January 2020.
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Dominic LeBlanc says he will not run to replace Trudeau as Liberal leader
