Victoria MP and NDP deputy house Leader Murray Rankin will not seek re-election this fall.
The two-term MP and former law professor announced Thursday he’ll leave his seat in Parliament come election day, Oct. 21.
Rankin was first elected MP for Victoria in 2012 and re-elected in 2015. In 2016, he was named justice and attorney general critic and in 2017 was appointed deputy house leader by NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh.
“This was a very difficult decision to make,” Rankin said in a statement Thursday.
“The honour of representing Victoria in the House of Commons has been the most exciting and rewarding experience of my life. By the time of the election, I will be coming up on seven years of service. I think it is now time for a new voice to represent us in Parliament.”
In his statement, Murray vowed to continue fighting against the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline between Edmonton and Burnaby. He also promised to use the remainder of his term to push the federal government to expunge criminal records for Canadians convicted of simple cannabis possession.
In one of his last speeches in the House on Wednesday, Rankin hammered Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over his handling of the SNC-Lavalin affair, blaming Trudeau for sending “mixed messages to Canadians” and adding, “enough is enough.”
Rankin said he will help campaign for the next federal NDP candidate in Victoria, a seat that has gone to the New Democrats in the past four general elections.
While working as a law professor at the University of Victoria, Murray served as an advisor to successive provincial NDP governments in Victoria in the 1990s, and helped establish legal organizations such as West Coast Environmental Law, the Land Conservancy of BC and the BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre.
