Labour Minister and Liberal MP Seamus O'Regan will not run in the next election, as announced Thursday morning. O'Regan, representing St. John's, NFLD, will keep his seat until the next federal election, which will be September 2025 or earlier. He has been an MP since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was elected in 2015, and a cabinet minister since 2017, holding portfolios including natural resources, indigenous services and veterans affairs. The 53-year-old, who is Trudeau’s long-time pal and was even in Trudeau’s wedding party, is stepping down for family reasons, sources told the CBC. His replacement reportedly will be announced on Friday. .O'Regan in 2019 took a leave of absence two weeks before the federal election, also citing family reasons. At the time his father, also named Seamus O'Regan, and was a judge of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador, was ill. "This week my family and I have been by my father's side as he faces a serious health challenge. I'll be taking some time with my family," O'Regan wrote on social media. . O’Regan has been open about his struggles with alcoholism and “suppression of his sexuality,” per archived articles from the CBC and The Tyee. While he came out as gay in his mid-30s, the former CTV host battled alcohol addiction even into his tenure as MP. After being elected in October 2015, he spent the subsequent holidays at a rehabilitation centre undergoing what the prime minister at the time called a “wellness program.”"You come to a point where you think you're totally in control of something, and you realize you're not," he told the CBC after 40 days of sobriety in January 2016. "I realize that I was competent, I was doing a good job, but I was nowhere near my best self. I was nowhere near the man I needed to be. I felt for sure I had all of this under control and I realized I didn't.”He said he would not have acknowledged he had a problem with alcohol if it were not for his family and friends calling an intervention on him. "Your friends, your family they come together and they say, you know what, you need to get better, you're not 100% at all. And I wasn't.”O’Regan after his stint in rehab said he connected his alcoholism to his struggle with his sexuality, per a 2017 CTV article about Trudeau’s apology to gay and trans Canadians on behalf of parliament. "This is about shame," said O’Regan at the time ."Being made to feel shame for being different. Growing up terrified of being ostracized, growing up, keeping some of the most beautiful, intimate parts of your life a secret, wondering if there was something twisted in you." .He said Trudeau’s apology prompted him to reflect on his own shame linked to his sexuality, and he only really started to grapple with it in the late 2000s, when he met his partner, Steve Doussis."When the time came when I fully realized I'm gay ... I went 'OK, this is not in question anymore," said O'Regan at the time. "This is not an exercise in fluidity ... I realized I was in love and there was no question."
