Former Liberal cabinet minister Bill Blair has been appointed Canada’s next high commissioner to the U.K.
The Liberal MP is expected to resign his seat on Monday, a senior government source told CBC News.
Blair’s appointment was announced in a news release from the Prime Minister’s Office.
“Blair brings four decades of experience serving Canadians and protecting their security,” the release said.
It also announced that Nathalie Drouin, who has been serving as the deputy clerk of the Privy Council and national security adviser to the prime minister, has been appointed Canada’s next ambassador to France. Both appointments will take effect “this spring,” the release said.
“As Canada forges new partnerships with the United Kingdom and France across trade, investment and defence, we will work together to strengthen the multilateral system and create greater certainty, stability, security and prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic,” the release said.
The former Toronto police chief was first elected as an MP in 2015 and held a number of cabinet positions — most notably as defence minister — under former prime minister Justin Trudeau.
The Toronto MP held onto the defence portfolio after Prime Minister Mark Carney was sworn in, but was shuffled to the back benches after April’s election.
Blair will be the second Trudeau-era minister to resign this year after former deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland left her seat in January.
What comes next for Chrystia Freeland’s riding after she steps down
It had previously been reported that Blair was expected to resign and take on a diplomatic post and Carney had indicated there would be “a few byelections” in the coming months — even though Freeland’s seat was the only vacancy when he made those comments.
Blair’s resignation means the Liberal government, just one seat shy of a majority before the holidays, will be short a second MP for the time being.
Both Blair and Freeland’s Toronto ridings are fairly safe Liberal seats, but a byelection needs to be called for both.
Once an MP gives notice to the Speaker of the House of Commons that they’ve resigned their seat, the Speaker has to notify the chief electoral officer that a seat is vacant. Once that notice has been given the government would have 11 to 180 days to call a byelection.
The government will have to wait the 11-day minimum before calling a byelection for Blair’s seat. Freeland’s seat has been officially vacant for a few weeks, but the government has yet to call a byelection for her riding.
Byelection campaigns last a minimum of 36 days.
