Ottawa, Jan 9 Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc has said that he won't be a candidate in the upcoming race to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as head of the Liberals.
LeBlanc announced the decision on Wednesday ahead of a Liberals caucus meeting. One of the caucus' discussions will be whether cabinet ministers ought to resign while seeking the leadership of the Liberal Party.
The finance minister said with Canada at a crucial juncture in its relationship with the United States, he wants to focus on his job in the cabinet, reports Xinhua news agency.
"The threat these tariffs pose to our nation's economic wellbeing 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," said LeBlanc.
Trudeau announced on Monday he was stepping down from the party's leadership but staying on as prime minister until a new leader was selected through a "robust, nationwide, competitive process."
LeBlanc, a longtime Trudeau ally, had previously run for the leadership and reportedly had the support of at least a dozen Liberal MPs. He is widely regarded as a safe pair of hands, taking on tricky portfolios, including stepping in to replace Freeland as Finance Minister after her resignation.
He has also been at the forefront of Canada's attempts to develop relations with the incoming Trump administration, accompanying Trudeau to Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in November.
Like Trudeau, he is political royalty in Canada; his father was the former governor-general, MP and Senator Romeo LeBlanc. The families' relationship goes back decades -- LeBlanc babysat for Trudeau when they were younger, and he was a pallbearer at the funeral of his father, the former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
LeBlanc chose not to run in the 2012 leadership race when Trudeau made his ambitions known.
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