Beyond the mandatory vaccination requirement for federal employees, Alghabra said, a similar mandate will be extended to "certain travellers."

Starting soon, all commercial air travellers and passengers on interprovincial trains and large marine vessels with overnight accommodations (such as cruise ships) will have to be vaccinated, Alghabra said. He said accommodations will be made for "those few who are unable to be vaccinated," such as testing and screening.

"Vaccine requirements in the transportation sector will help protect the safety of employees, their families, passengers, their communities and all Canadians. And more broadly, it will hasten Canada's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic," he said.

Asked when these measures for travellers would take effect, Alghabra said the government is developing "a measured and practical approach to requiring vaccines in these sectors as quickly as possible."

With a fourth wave of new infections poised to hit Canada in the coming weeks, experts say boosting vaccine coverage will protect the country's health care system from again being overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients.

To date, the vast majority of new infections have been among the unvaccinated, even though they make up an increasingly smaller segment of the population.

There have been a number of "breakthrough" cases among the fully vaccinated but early data suggest those with two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine are much less likely to require hospitalization or die from the virus.

Proponents of mandatory shots maintain it's the best way to develop herd immunity, protect the collective health of Canadians and rid the country of a very serious disease. Almost universal vaccine coverage has eradicated other diseases, such as polio and tetanus.

Critics, meanwhile, say that requiring vaccines is a heavy-handed approach that could lead to discrimination against the unvaccinated.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole said vaccines are "the most important tool in the fight against COVID-19" and the party encourages "every Canadian who is able to get one." 

But when asked about the federal mandate, the spokesperson said that "Conservatives support Canadians' right to determine their own health choices."

Before the new requirements were announced Friday, Conservative MP David Yurdiga, who represents Fort McMurray, Alta. in the Commons, said a government plan to make vaccination mandatory for federal bureaucrats was "another example of the Liberals using severe government overreach for political gain."

Yurdiga said forcing these workers to get a vaccine is a "tyrannical" idea that should give all Canadians pause.

David Yurdiga, Conservative MP for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake. (David Thurton/ CBC)D

"Canadians deserve the right to liberty, whether they choose to be vaccinated or not. Mandating the vaccine as a requirement to work would be the beginning of a slippery slope," Yurdiga said.

The MP said such a policy would punish Canadians for "what they choose to do with their bodies."

While there's certain to be resistance from some circles, at least one federal public service union said Friday it's open to the mandate.

Debi Daviau is president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, which represents 60,000 bureaucrats across the country. She said in a media statement that the union "welcomes all efforts to increase vaccination coverage in Canada."

"That includes a vaccine policy in the federal government that makes vaccines more accessible to our members and accommodates legitimate reasons for which an employee may not be vaccinated."

Mark Porter, executive vice-president of people and culture at WestJet, said the airline would be "working diligently to implement the government's policy on mandatory vaccines for airline employees."

"Vaccinations are the most effective way to ensure the safety of our guests and employees, while curbing the spread of COVID-19," he said, promising to work with employees who may have questions about the new requirement.

Goldy Hyder, president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada, said requiring vaccines for some workers is "absolutely the right thing to do.

"These measures should be implemented as soon as possible" so that Canada can avoid further pandemic-related economic disruption, he said.

"We must do better if we hope to avert a significant fourth wave. Canadians and Canadian businesses cannot endure any more lockdowns."

McCrimmon has served as parliamentary secretary to several ministers since her election in Kanata—Carleton in 2015, and is the chair of the parliamentary committee on national defence.

First elected in a 2014 byelection in the now defunct riding of Trinity—Spadina, Vaughan currently represents Spadina—Fort York and serves as parliamentary secretary to the minister of families, children and social development.

Will Amos has represented the Quebec riding of Pontiac since 2015. He was parliamentary secretary to the minister of innovation, science and industry from 2019 until earlier this year, when he stepped down after two incidents during hybrid sessions of the House of Commons, one in which he was caught on camera naked and another in which he said he "urinated without realizing (he) was on camera."

After the second incident, Amos said he would step away from his parliamentary duties and seek assistance.

Pontiac Liberal MP Will Amos responds to a question on Parliament Hill Dec. 11, 2020. (Patrick Doyle/Canadian Press)

Amos said in a statement Sunday he was "not closing the door to politics" but that now was not the right time to run for re-election.

"Politics is a beautiful and tough profession. But it is not the only means by which progressive, transformative change can be achieved to move our society forward," he wrote.

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Amos won convincing victories in 2015 and 2019 in a riding that is often considered a bellwether in Canadian politics.

Amos's statement came a short time after Karen McCrimmon tweeted her own announcement that she would not reoffer.

She said on Twitter she was facing health challenges and would not be running again, calling the news "disappointing." She added that the timing was "undeniably difficult" but noted that she "was not in any way pushed to make this decision."

"It is a painful realization that I cannot continue to serve you in the manner you so rightfully deserve and to the standard that I have always striven to achieve," she wrote.

McCrimmon kept her suburban Ottawa riding solidly red over the past two elections, in an area that was largely Conservative territory prior to redistribution of seats in 2012. She also participated in the Liberals' 2013 leadership race.

The news of Amos, McCrimmon and Vaughan's withdrawals come ahead of a widely anticipated election call later this summer. They join nine other Liberal MPs who have already announced they will not be running again.

'I've done as much as I think I can do': Vaughan

CBC News reported earlier Sunday Vaughan would not be running in his downtown Toronto riding.

"First and foremost it's a family decision," he said in an interview. Vaughan also said that turning 60 this year made him reflect on the stresses of life as a parliamentarian.

"It's not a job you can do at half-speed. When I looked at the term ahead and the work that is still to be done, I thought, 'I've done as much as I think I can do.'"

Liberal Karen McCrimmon speaks to supporters and volunteers after her re-election in Kanata—Carleton on Oct. 21, 2019. McCrimmon announced Sunday she would not run in the next federal election. (Matthew Kupfer/CBC)

"As my mother once told me, when you feel like you've run out of steam and out of fire, it's time to get out of the way and let someone else with the passion to be on the floor of Parliament or the office that you hold, to let them take that spot," Vaughan said.

He said he had notified Prime Minister Justin Trudeau several months ago that he would not be seeking re-election.

The Liberal MP first won a seat in Parliament in 2014 after a byelection in the downtown Toronto riding of Trinity—Spadina, which was scrubbed from the electoral map after redistribution. 

He has represented Spadina—Fort York since 2015, when he defeated NDP candidate Olivia Chow by a comfortable margin. He easily held the seat in 2019.

Vaughan says he won't run for office elsewhere

Vaughan also ruled out running for office at any other level of government, including for mayor of Toronto when that city holds its municipal elections next year.

"I think I'll leave it to the city to choose its next generation of leaders, and if I can support them I will," he said.

"But the idea of running for another term of office in another level of government is not in the cards. It's time for a new chapter."

Vaughan celebrates his byelection win in the Trinity—Spadina riding in June 2014. (Aaron Vincent Elkaim/The Canadian Press)

Vaughan said he was looking forward to revisiting, in some capacity, old projects he had envisioned during his years as a Toronto city councillor from 2006-14, such as the revitalization of city parks and other spaces.

He also said he had a "wicked" collection of cartoons that he'd never published. Vaughan was a cartoonist before working as a journalist for various outlets including the CBC.

Reflections on 7 years in Parliament

Vaughan said he was proud of the work he and the government had done around affordable housing and poverty reduction.

He also reflected on his years as an MP, saying there was too much of a partisan atmosphere in the House that got in the way of good policy.

"And this is coming from someone who's had as much fun as anybody heckling," he said, while emphasizing an equal focus on policymaking.

"Politics works better when it's collaborative and when we meet together on common ground, instead of always looking for the battleground."

Vaughan said he was looking forward to seeing what a new generation of politicians would be able to do in federal politics, pointing to work done by ministers Ahmed Hussen, Maryam Monsef, Karina Gould and fellow MP Marci Ien.

The MP said he would continue to make government announcements focused on housing as part of his role as parliamentary secretary.

"There is still work to do."

Nine Liberal MPs have said they will not be running again. The Conservatives are losing seven incumbents to retirement, three NDP MPs are bowing out and the Bloc is losing two. Independent MP Jody Wilson-Raybould announced a month ago she won't be running again.

Some of these ridings are considered safe seats for their incumbents' parties. Others promise tight races between two or more parties.

"When a prominent long-time incumbent has held a seat and then retires, a party would have a little bit of natural nervousness because they would always look at that seat as a lock," said Conservative strategist Tim Powers.  

Case in point: the Newfoundland riding of St. John's East, currently held by the NDP's Jack Harris.

Harris won three of the last four races in that riding; he lost by a margin of just 1.4 per cent in 2015 before coming back to win in 2019 by 13.7 per cent.

The seat was the first to see a Liberal nomination contest for the coming election. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited St. John's the week of July 26 — part of what a Liberal official told CBC News was an effort to shore up support in the area.

Anne McGrath, the NDP's national director, said the party regrets losing a strong candidate and colleague like Harris.

"It is a loss for sure. But it also opens up opportunities for other folks who have been active in their community or active in the party to step up and to potentially become candidates," she said. "You have to fight hard for every inch of support for every riding.'

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Newfoundland Premier Andrew Furey in St. John's, N.L., the week of July 26 to announce a child care agreement. (The Canadian Press/Andrew Vaughan)

Another competitive seat losing its incumbent is Ottawa Centre, where cabinet minister Catherine McKenna has announced she will not be running again. While she won the seat by a comfortable margin of 19.6 per cent in 2019, she squeaked by on a 4.1 per cent margin in 2015.

McGrath said that, with no incumbent and with the NDP representing the area at the provincial level, the party likes its chances in Ottawa Centre.

Ottawa Centre has a history of flipping between the two parties. The Liberals held the seat from 1988 to 2003; the NDP had it from 2004 to 2015.

"If somebody has been an MP for two or three terms and they do well and they get resoundingly supported, you've gotten used to putting that in your win column," Powers said. "So when you make a change and that MP steps down, then there's a little bit of uncertainty about it."

• Have an election question for CBC News? Email us: Ask@cbc.ca. Your input helps inform our coverage.

The New Brunswick riding of Miramichi—Grand Lake and the Quebec riding of Trois-Rivières are two more districts that promise tight races.

The Liberals won Miramichi—Grand Lake by a margin of just 1.1 per cent of the vote in 2019, a steep decline from its 13 per cent margin in 2015. The riding has been held by the Conservatives (2008 to 2015) and the Liberals (1993 to 2008 and from 2015 on).

The 2019 election saw a very tight race in Miramichi—Grand Lake between the Liberals and the Conservatives, who split the vote there with 36.6 per cent and 35.7 per cent, respectively. The Greens came a distant third at 11.3 per cent. Liberal MP Pat Finnigan's coming retirement puts a question mark over this riding.

Pat Finnigan, MP in Miramichi-Grand Lake, narrowly won his riding in 2019. (CBC)

Trois-Rivières is currently held by the Bloc Québécois; it won the riding back from the NDP in 2019 by a margin of just 2.4 per cent over the second-place Liberal candidate. It's also shaping up to be a close three-way race. The NDP won the riding from the Bloc in 2011 and barely held it in 2015 by a margin of just 1.6 per cent.

The riding has been held in the past by both the Conservatives and the Liberals. In 2019, the race was a three-way contest between the Bloc (with 28.5 per cent of the vote), the Liberals (26.1 per cent) and the Conservatives (25.2 per cent).

Another interesting three-way race could take place in B.C.'s Vancouver Granville riding, now that Wilson-Raybould has announced she plans to retire.

Wilson-Raybould won the seat as a Liberal in 2015 by a margin of 17.1 per cent. After Trudeau removed her from caucus in 2019, she ran as an Independent and took the riding again by a much tighter 6 per cent margin.

The 2015 election also saw strong performances in Vancouver Granville from the NDP (26.6 per cent of the vote) and the Conservatives (26.1 per cent of the vote).

Not every retiring MP is leaving a battle behind.

Halifax West — currently held by former Speaker and Liberal MP Geoff Regan — and Moose Jaw Lake Centre Lanigan, currently held by the Conservatives' Tom Lukiwski, are shaping to deliver much the same results they did in years past after their incumbents retire with the coming election.

The retirement of Liberal MP Wayne Easter may have created an opening for the Green Party's Anna Keenan. (Laura Meader/CBC)

Regan has served uninterrupted as the MP for Halifax West since 2000. He won the seat in 2019 by a margin of 30.2 per cent, down from his margin of 53 per cent in 2015. Moose Jaw Lake Centre Lanigan has remained in Conservative hands since its creation in 2015; Lukiwski won it by a 54.1 per cent margin in 2019.

Liberal and Conservative party officials say they don't expect those ridings to change hands this time. And while it's likely that the P.E.I. riding of Malpeque — a riding represented by Liberal MP Wayne Easter that's been in the Liberal column since 1988 — will stay Liberal this year, it's not a certainty.

In 2019, Easter won the riding with a margin of 14.9 per cent, taking 41.4 per cent of the vote to the Greens' 26.5 per cent and the Conservatives' 25.6 per cent. With Green Party Leader Annamie Paul now engaging in open conflict with party brass, the Greens' poll numbers have sagged and it's not clear where disgruntled Green supporters in the riding might send their votes.

"Historically, it probably has a better chance of being a Liberal seat than not, given Prince Edward Island's, not unlike Newfoundland and Labrador's, more established tendency to vote Liberal," said Powers, adding that "... an individual candidate's personality can also be an important factor in influencing outcomes, particularly in Atlantic Canada."

Powers said that the Greens are well established in P.E.I. now, having formed the Official Opposition in the province's legislature, and the Greens' troubles at the national level might not affect their prospects in P.E.I. 

Anna Keenan, the Green candidate in Malpeque, said Easter's departure changes things on the ground in the riding.

"It was quite exciting for a lot of Green supporters when they heard that Wayne was not going to be running again," Keenan told CBC News. "My response is a little bit more cautious. I think this definitely makes the race more exciting and higher stakes, but it doesn't make our work easier."

The current list of retiring MPs:

Liberal

Larry Bagnell — Yukon

Navdeep Bains — Mississauga Malton 

Bob Bratina — Hamilton East Stoney Creek 

Wayne Easter — Malpeque 

Pat Finnigan — Miramichi-Grand Lake 

Paul Lefebvre — Sudbury

Geoff Regan — Halifax West 

Catherine McKenna — Ottawa Centre 

Kate Young — London West 

Conservative

Peter Kent — Thornhill 

Tom Lukiwski — Moose Jaw Lake Centre Lanigan 

Phil McColeman — Brantford-Brant 

Cathy McLeod — Kamloops Thompson Cariboo

Bruce Stanton — Simcoe North 

David Sweet — Flamborough Glanbrook 

Diane Finley — Haldimand Norfolk [has already stepped down]

Bloc Québécois

Louise Charbonneau — Trois Rivières

Simon Marcil — Mirabel 

NDP

Scott Duvall — Hamilton Mountain  

Jack Harris — St. John's East 

Mumilaaq Qaqqaq — Nunavut

Independent

Jody Wilson-Raybould — Vancouver Granville

Independent MP and former Liberal cabinet minister Jody Wilson-Raybould says she won't run in the next federal election.

Wilson-Raybould announced Thursday that she decided not to put her name forward for re-election, in part, because she is dismayed by the state of Canadian politics. She said that Parliament is focused on partisanship rather than achieving positive change for Canadians.

"From my seat over the last six years, I have noticed a change in Parliament, a regression," Wilson-Raybould said in a letter posted online. 

"It has become more and more toxic and ineffective while simultaneously marginalizing individuals from certain backgrounds. Federal politics is, in my view, increasingly a disgraceful triumph of harmful partisanship over substantive action."

In her letter, Wilson-Raybould said she can contribute more to progress on the issues important to her — reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, social justice and the fight against climate change — outside of the House of Commons. 

"With others, I fought for change from outside of federal politics for 25-plus years, and I fought for change within federal politics for the past six years. Both inside and outside of government, I know the fight continues," she wrote.

The SNC-Lavalin affair

A former B.C. Crown prosecutor and regional chief in B.C., Wilson-Raybould was first elected as a Liberal to represent the Vancouver Granville riding in 2015. She became Canada's first Indigenous justice minister but resigned from cabinet and was subsequently ousted from the Liberal Party during the SNC-Lavalin affair.

At the centre of the controversy were claims that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his office attempted to bully Wilson-Raybould into offering a deferred prosecution agreement to the Quebec engineering firm that would have shielded it from prosecution on corruption charges. Wilson-Raybould refused to grant the agreement and was demoted to the Veterans Affairs ministry before she resigned.

The allegations of political interference prompted a parliamentary inquiry that eventually led to the departure of Wilson-Raybould and her close friend Jane Philpott from cabinet, the resignation of one of the prime minister's key aides and opposition calls for Trudeau to step down.

The ethics commissioner subsequently ruled that Trudeau violated the Conflict of Interest Act by trying to influence Wilson-Raybould in the matter.

LISTEN: Jody Wilson-Raybould interview on CBC Radio's The Early Edition

 

11:09Jody Wilson-Raybould will not seek re-election

Recently, Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett apologized publicly to Wilson-Raybould after suggesting that her expressions of concern over what she called Trudeau's "selfish jockeying for an election" was a ploy to secure a generous MP pension.

MPs become eligible for pensions after being in office for six years, a date which lands on Oct. 19 for those MPs first elected in 2015.

An early election call, which many expect could come in mid-August, would mean Wilson-Raybould would not qualify for the pension.