Foote quits politics over children’s health risk
OTTAWA • Judy Foote twice continued working to represent her Newfoundland and Labrador constituents while fighting gruelling battles with breast cancer.
It was a health risk to her children that prompted her to quit politics.
Foote announced Thursday she’s resigning immediately from the federal cabinet and will step down as a Liberal MP shortly after Parliament resumes next month.
She has been on an indefinite leave of absence from the Public Works and Government Services Department since April, due to unspecified family issues.
The two-time breast cancer survivor revealed Thursday she inherited the cancercausing BRCA2 gene and testing has shown she passed it on to her children. Foote has two adult daughters and a son.
“What the BRCA2 gene means is that you are susceptible to any number of cancers and when it hits your children, it’s a totally different ball game,” Foote said in St. John’s.
While she is “cancer free” and her children are well, the 65-year-old Foote said the threat to their health “puts things in perspective.”
Her family has always been supportive during her 28 years in politics — eight as communications director for former premier Clyde Wells, 11 as a provincial MLA, nine as an MP.
“You know, more than the jobs and the life, I love my family … It’s my decision to be with them, where I need to be and where they need me to be.”
In the 2015 election, Foote won almost 82 per cent of the vote in her Bonavista-BurinTrinity riding — the highest vote share in the country. Asked why she’s resigning immediately as a minister but holding on as an MP for a few more weeks, Foote said she wanted to give Prime Minister Justin Trudeau time to fill her post before he hosts a cabinet retreat in St. John’s early next month.
Foote’s portfolio has been overseen on an interim basis by Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr.
Liberals widely expect Trudeau to give rookie Newfoundland MP Seamus O’Regan a junior cabinet post. O’Regan is a personal friend of Trudeau’s. He and his partner were among those who accompanied Trudeau on a controversial family vacation last Christmas to the Bahamian island owned by the Aga Khan, a billionaire philanthropist and spiritual leader of the world’s Ismaili Muslims.