This Brampton Liberal MP Has Resigned

Published November 22, 2018 at 11:19 pm

An up and coming politician in the Liberal backbenches, from Brampton, has announced he is resigning his seat as a Member of Parliament.

An up and coming politician in the Liberal backbenches, from Brampton, has announced he is resigning his seat as a Member of Parliament.Image may contain: 1 person

Raj Grewal, the MP for Brampton East, made the announcement via Facebook:

“Due to medical and personal reasons, I will be resigning my seat as the Member for Brampton East. This has been a decision I’ve struggled with for some time now and one I made with great difficulty and real sadness. But I feel I need this time to focus on my health and family,” Grewal said in his statement.

“I am grateful for your unwavering support over the past three years. Brampton East is and will always be a special part of my life. I will continue to work for this community and am hopeful I will have the opportunity to serve you again.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau added his own comments on Twitter:

But Grewal has also been under a minor cloud of controversy. During the Prime Minister’s trip to India earlier this year, Grewal had invited Yusuf Yenilmez, CEO of ZGemi Inc., to a number of receptions in India with Trudeau and his delegation.

According to this report from the CBC, ZGemi Inc, a general contractor in Brampton, was listed as a source of income by Grewal. A New Democratic MP mentioned this information in filing a request to investigate to the federal ethnics commissioner.

Grewal did not make mention of this in his statement of resignation.


The 33 year old Brampton MP’s imminent departure will leave an additional vacancy in the House of Commons that will need to be filled in a by-election, along with several other ridings across Canada in Montreal, British Columbia and Ontario.

One of those ridings is Burnaby South in BC, which is being contested by federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, who once represented portions of Brampton East in the Ontario Legislature. Singh has now been nominated to run in the Vancouver area riding and is unlikely to move all the way back to Ontario. 

Grewal won Brampton East in 2015 with 52 per cent of the vote under the Liberal banner.

A by election will take place in the Eastern Ontario riding of Leeds-Grenville, Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes on December 3. The subsequent by-elections have to be called by Trudeau by March 2019.

With a recently concluded municipal election, and with the federal Liberals still riding solidly in the opinion polls, no doubt there will be jockeying from a number of candidates seeking the Liberal nod to replace Grewal.

Adding to that, former Toronto councillor Giorgio Mammoliti has been making noise about running for the Conservatives in Brampton. Might the allure of an open race in the city he’s been eyeing entice Mammo to make his way out here?

The federal election is scheduled to take place in October 2019.

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