Former Tory interim leader stepping down

OTTAWA Former Conservative interim leader and longtime Manitoba member of Parliament Candice Bergen announced Wednesday she is stepping down.

Bergen said in a video posted to Twitter that she submitted a letter of resignation as the representative for Portage-Lisgar after meeting with her party’s caucus.

“I won’t be going back into the House of Commons. I’m not really one for long goodbyes,” she said in the video. She also thanked her family and colleagues in Ottawa, “regardless of your political stripe.”

Bergen was first elected to the rural — and reliably Conservative — Manitoba riding in 2008. She later served as the party’s deputy leader under former leader Erin O’Toole.

Her resignation comes a day before the one-year anniversary of when O’Toole was ousted by caucus and Bergen put her name forward to serve as the party’s interim leader. Her tenure in that role ended last September when Pierre Poilievre became leader. Bergen announced a few days before his victory that she would not run in the next federal election.

Prospective successors include Manitoba finance minister Cameron Friesen, who said last week that he would be leaving cabinet to seek the nomination for Bergen’s seat.

Bergen did not divulge her plans for the future in Wednesday’s departure video, saying only that “the best is yet to come.”

Many federal MPs credit Bergen with helping unite the party’s caucus, which found itself divided under O’Toole’s leadership and after the Conservatives lost the 2021 election to the Liberals.