Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Sean Fraser rises during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, on Dec. 5.PATRICK DOYLE/The Canadian Press
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is about to lose one of his top performing ministers, just as his office was already planning a cabinet shakeup amid tensions with Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and as he mounts yet another attempt to recruit former central banker Mark Carney.
On Monday, Housing Minister Sean Fraser will announce that he will not seek re-election, four sources confirmed to The Globe and Mail on Sunday. He will stay on as MP until the general election.
Three of the sources said he was leaving for family reasons. Two of the sources said his announcement means he will be removed from cabinet when the Prime Minister shuffles his senior team, which could come as soon as this week.
The Globe is not identifying the sources who were not authorized to disclose the information prior to Mr. Fraser’s announcement.
His pending exit is a significant loss for the Prime Minister, who appointed him just over a year ago to wrest control of the housing file. Mr. Fraser is the eighth minister since July to quit cabinet or announce they will not be seeking re-election.
Separately, a senior Liberal source said Toronto MP Nate Erskine-Smith is expected to be promoted to cabinet in the upcoming shuffle, with housing a likely portfolio. He has previously said he won’t seek re-election but is now expected to stay on the ballot in a bid to keep his riding Liberal in the next campaign.
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On Friday, The Globe reported that Mr. Trudeau could shuffle his cabinet as early as Wednesday, but sources cautioned that it could still come as late as January, with one of the factors influencing the timing being whether or not Mr. Carney will join the fold.
On Sunday, one of the sources, who confirmed Mr. Fraser’s departure, said the shuffle’s timing remains unconfirmed.
Ms. Freeland will table her fall economic update on Monday. Last week, The Globe reported that tensions between her office and the Prime Minister’s have increased in part over spending priorities. In the last few weeks, Mr. Trudeau has also revived talks to recruit Mr. Carney, with sources saying the finance post is the most likely position for the former central banker.
In addition to Mr. Fraser, the Prime Minister also needs to replace Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez, who quit to run for Quebec Liberal leadership; Randy Boissonnault, who left cabinet under a cloud of controversy this fall; and four other ministers who announced in October they won’t run in the next election campaign.
Those ministers are National Revenue Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau, Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal, Sports Minister Carla Qualtrough and Filomena Tassi, Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario.
Mr. Rodriquez’s job as Transport Minister was handed to Treasury Board President Anita Anand, who now holds dual roles in cabinet. Veterans Affairs Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor assumed Mr. Boissonnault’s responsibilities as Minister of Employment and Workforce Development, as well as official languages.
In July, Newfoundland and Labrador MP Seamus O’Regan resigned from cabinet and announced he wouldn’t seek re-election. He was replaced as Labour Minister by Steve MacKinnon.
Mr. Fraser, an MP from rural Nova Scotia, has risen through the ranks of the Liberal caucus and cabinet since he was first elected in 2015. Just after the 2019 election, his newborn daughter died. He and his wife have two other children.