» Independent MP Kevin Vuong not seeking re-election

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OTTAWA — The longest-serving independent MP of Canada’s 44th Parliament won’t be seeking re-election.

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Spadina-Fort York MP Kevin Vuong, whose 2021 election in the downtown Toronto riding came tinged with controversy and allegations of interference by the Chinese government, tells the Toronto Sun he won’t contest his seat in the coming federal election.

“Unlike some of my colleagues, I actually want to spend more time with my family, ” Vuong said with a smile.

“I don’t think I can be the best MP that I want to be and that Canadians deserve and be a great father and husband, so at this juncture I am choosing to focus on my family and will continue to serve Canada in another capacity.”

Vuong and wife Elizabeth welcomed daughter Victoria in October.

In a statement, he said his four short years in Parliament helped give back to a country that gave him and his family — who fled to Canada from Vietnam as refugees — so much.

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Vuong originally ran for the seat in the 2021 federal election as a Liberal, but was removed from the ticket after a Toronto Star story highlighting a dropped sexual assault charge stemming from an April 2019 encounter with a former girlfriend.

The Liberals cut ties with Vuong just days before the election, and after advance polls had closed. He won the vote.

Vuong told Postmedia in 2023 that he’d met the woman through a dating app in 2018, embarking on a two-month-long relationship.

An unexpected April 2019 invitation to her apartment, Vuong said, resulted in the police complaint — charges that were almost immediately withdrawn by the Crown.

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Vuong — the child of ethnically-Chinese immigrants from Vietnam — maintains the allegations were part of an effort to discredit him by the Chinese government, stemming from his prominent anti-communist positions.

Vuong’s term in in office — one of three independents sitting in the House at the election call — was marked with a number of initiatives, including the most prominent voice in government standing against Canada’s explosion of antisemitic violence since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas terror attacks.

In his statement, he says this won’t be his last appearance in public service.

“I am more focused than ever on contributing to building a better city, province and country – not only for us, but for my daughter and the next generation of Canadians,” his statement reads.

“It’s now about them and the Toronto and Canada they will grow up in and inherit.”

bpassifiume@postmedia.com
X: @bryanpassifiume

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