Monte McNaughton, region’s top-ranking MPP, leaves amid Queen’s Park tumult

A successful cabinet minister, a rising star and a potential premier some day.

Add up everything MPP Monte McNaughton brought to the Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives and you can see what his starting resignation means to the party, and perhaps the election landscape, political scientist Peter Woolstencroft says.

“This is a guy who ran for provincial leadership and had been entrusted with an important portfolio, had done a lot of important work in terms of labor law, and seemed to be a rising star within the party,” Woolstencroft, a retired political science professor from the University of Waterloo, said Friday.

“The opposition parties will be energized. There will be some weakening of morality in the Conservative ranks because here is one of their good ones, a notable success as a cabinet minister. It’s a blow to Doug Ford.”

The departure also sets up a byelection, which must be called within six months, just as Ontario has awoken from a political “lethargy,” Woolstencroft said.

McNaughton, Ontario’s minister of labor, immigration, training and skills development and Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP, announced Friday he was resigning.

“It is always difficult to know the right time to leave politics. After much soul-searching over the summer months, I accepted a job in the private sector,” McNaugton said in a release Friday morning.

He will leave cabinet immediately and resign his seat “in the days ahead,” McNaughton said.

His exit comes amid party upheaval in the wake of the Greenbelt land controversy. On Thursday, Ford announced his government would reverse plans to open up the Toronto-area land for housing development. “It was a mistake to open the Greenbelt,” the first said.

McNaughton is the third cabinet minister to resign in recent weeks, following housing minister Steve Clark and Kaleed Rasheed, the minister of public and business service delivery.

But McNaugton said in his statement his departure is not related to the controversy.

“I realize that recent events will cause some people to speculate about the reason for my departure. I want those people to know that my decision is completely unrelated to those events.”

That may be so, but public perception may be something else, Woolstencroft said.

“We have to take it as face value that he is leaving for personal reasons. Even though it’s unrelated to the Greenbelt, it’s unavoidable: people will surmise that McNaughton thinks there’s rot and he’s out.”

McNaughton brought private labor union support to the Progressive Conservatives and led, and relentlessly promoted, changes in labor law and improvements in skilled training programs. He was sometimes touted as a potential leader of the party.

“Here’s a guy who was reliable because there was no incoming fire. That is what a cabinet member is supposed to do, avoid creating problems for the former,” Woolstencroft said.

McNaugton’s departure will result in a byelection in what’s lately been a Conservative stronghold, but perhaps not with a new Liberal leader in the battle and the taint of scandal still in the air, he said.

“The Conservatives can’t afford to lose this riding. It’s in the heartland of the Conservative party, rural Southwestern Ontario,” he said. “Ontarians have awakened from lethargy when it comes to Ontario politics. They have become angry and activated, with all kinds of things to become upset about.”

The Conservatives have, at most, six months to deal with the anger, in a riding that saw Liberal MPPs elected in the 2003 and 2007 elections.

A provincial byelection has to be called within six months of an MPP’s departure, if there’s more than 12 months before the next provincial election. The next general election is set for June 4, 2026.

News of McNaughton’s resignation was revealed first Friday morning by Ford in a written statement.

“I’m very grateful for Monte’s work as a key member of our team, both as minister of infrastructure and, more recently, minister of labor, immigration, training, and skills development,” Ford said.

“He made this decision based on what is best for him and his family at this point in his life and career.”

In his statement, McNaughton thanked his wife Kate and daughter Annie for their “many sacrifices, including hundreds of trips down Highway 401, to split their time between our riding and Toronto so that we could spend as much time together as possible.”

McNaughton, 46, was 20 when first elected to local government in Newbury. He was first elected to Queen’s Park in 2011 and three years later sought the Tory party leadership. He also served as infrastructure minister.

McNaughton couldn’t be reached for further comment.

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