PM names Anita Anand transport minister after Pablo Rodriguez quits cabinet

Canada’s Transport Minister resigned from his position on Thursday (Sept. 19), marking a slight shakeup to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s front bench.

Pablo Rodriguez, who took on Canada’s transport portfolio in 2023, has decided to step down from his role in the federal cabinet to seek leadership of the Quebec Liberals,

“I have informed the prime minister of my resignation as Canada’s transport minister and Quebec lieutenant, effective immediately,” Rodriguez told reporters yesterday.

“I have also decided to sit as an Independent MP until the launch of the leadership campaign next January. This is in order to avoid costly byelections a few weeks or months before January.”

Anita Anand sworn in

Treasury Board President Anita Anand will take on the transport file. She was sworn into the position on Thursday afternoon.

Rodriguez’s decision comes as a blow to Trudeau’s Liberals, who recently lost a byelection in the riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun in Montreal on Monday.

Rodriguez was previously Canada’s minister of Canadian Heritage, and was first elected in 2004. He was defeated in 2011 before winning back his seat in 2015.

He will sit as an Independent member of Parliament until January, which is when the Quebec Liberal leadership race begins.

Rodriguez assumed Canada’s transport files last year during the travel industry’s “revenge travel” rebound phase, when COVID-related travel restrictions became a thing of the past.  

He took on duties formerly shouldered by Omar Alghabra, who took on the cabinet post in January 2021, during the peak of the pandemic's devastating impact on the travel industry.

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