Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc said on Wednesday that he won't run in the expected contest to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as leader of the Liberals.
LeBlanc announced the decision before a meeting of the Liberals caucus, one of which will be about whether cabinet ministers should resign in order to run for the leadership of the Liberal Party.
The finance minister, according to the Xinhua news agency said that with Canada at a juncture of its relationship with the United States, he wishes to focus on his job in the cabinet.
"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.
On Monday, Trudeau announced he was stepping down from his role as party leader but would continue to serve as prime minister until a new leader was elected in a "robust, nationwide, competitive process.
A long-time Trudeau ally, LeBlanc had already tried for the leadership and reportedly enjoyed the backing of at least a dozen Liberal MPs.
He is widely considered a safe pair of hands and has taken on tricky portfolios, including stepping in to replace Freeland as Finance Minister after her resignation.
He has also been leading Canada's efforts to establish relations with the newly elected Trump administration, traveling with 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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