Canadian Housing Minister Sean Fraser is resigning from cabinet and doesn’t plan to run in the next election, a move that comes as Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party languishes in the polls with an election looming in 2025.

Fraser will announce the move on Monday, said a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The news was first reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

Trudeau is already preparing to shuffle his cabinet due to multiple departures over the past few months. Fraser is one of the highest-profile exits and had been seen as a rising star in the party.

Fraser’s resignation also comes as Trudeau redoubles efforts to recruit Brookfield Asset Management Chair Mark Carney to cabinet, though it remains unclear where those conversations will lead, the government official said.

Trudeau told reporters in July that he had been trying to persuade Carney for years to join politics. More recently, Carney agreed to become an economic adviser to the Liberal Party. He also serves in a number of philanthropic and business roles, including as chair of Bloomberg Inc.

Fraser was appointed housing minister in 2023, tasked with overseeing a huge effort to spur more homebuilding and try to salvage the Trudeau government’s credibility on the file after a steep run-up in housing prices.

However, in Fraser’s previous job as immigration minister, he was in charge during much of a massive post-pandemic surge in temporary immigration that strained the country’s infrastructure — and was a key factor in driving up home prices in the first place.

Trudeau’s government is now working to unwind that surge, slowing down immigration substantially over the next three years.

Bloomberg.com