Former housing minister Sean Fraser confirmed Tuesday that he will be running for re-election in his Nova Scotia riding after all.
His decision comes about three months after he told Canadians he wouldn’t be running again to spend more time with his family.
“Well folks, it’s elbows up,” he posted on Facebook.
Asked about the rumour of Fraser’s return during a campaign stop in Halifax Tuesday, Liberal Leader Mark Carney tried to play coy on what Fraser was going to do.
“Sean stepping up for our country, if that indeed is what he’s going to announce later, and I don’t know if that is indeed what he’s going to announce later today, is exceptionally good news for Canada,” he said with a big grin.
But in his post, Fraser said Carney called him personally Monday to ask him to “join the team that will be responding to this unprecedented economic threat from the United States.”
“I said yes,” he said. “There is too much at stake in this election for me to be comfortable sitting on the sidelines.”
Fraser said Carney had promised to help him find a better balance between being an MP and a father.
“Honestly, it’s high time that we make these jobs sincerely family-friendly and I trust him to do it,” Fraser said.
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Carney said he “regretted but respected” Fraser’s decision in December to leave federal politics for family reasons but that he now joins other “exceptional people stepping up for the Liberal party at the country’s time of need.”
Fraser is at least the fifth Liberal MP to change their mind in recent weeks about not running again.
Ontario MP Anita Anand, now the minister of industry, announced her intention not to run again in January, but by late February had reversed course.
Ontario MP and former minister Helena Jaczek and New Brunswick MP Wayne Long both said they weren’t running again but now are. And Toronto MP Nate Erskine-Smith, who announced early in 2023 that he wouldn’t run again, changed his mind in December when former prime minister Justin Trudeau added him to his cabinet as housing minister.
Carney visited the Irving Shipyard in Halifax for his campaign announcement Tuesday, where he was asked whether he has any concerns about Canada sharing confidential information with the United States following Monday’s explosive report in The Atlantic that top U.S. national security leaders included a journalist in a group chat about military strikes.
Carney said that information leaks are a serious issue and lessons must be learned when they happen.
“We have a very strong intelligence partnership with the Americans through Five Eyes,” he said. “Mistakes do happen, but what’s important is how people react to those mistakes.”
Carney said that in the face of the “most difficult evolution of the new threat environment,” Canada needs to become “more and more Canadian in our defence capabilities.”
Carney pledged to accelerate Canada’s defence spending to get it to the two per cent NATO target “by or before” 2030, two years ahead of the schedule set by Trudeau. It’s a policy Carney first outlined during his leadership run.
Carney is also promising to modernize recruitment in the Canadian Armed Forces to make up a shortfall. He said he will do that by boosting salaries by an unspecified amount, building more on-base housing and improving health and child-care services.
The defence plan includes new submarines and more heavy icebreakers, also previously promised by the Trudeau government.
Carney said he will create drone capabilities to defend undersea infrastructure in the Arctic and is also pledging to give the Canadian Coast Guard a new mandate and equipment for maritime surveillance.
He declined to give details on Tuesday, saying that information will be included in the party’s election platform.
-with files from Anja Karadeglija in Ottawa.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 25, 2025.
© 2025 The Canadian Press