OTTAWA — Former CTV personality Seamus O'Regan will seek the Liberal nomination in the riding of St. John's South—Mount Pearl.
O'Regan was mum about the bid on Twitter Monday but several sources told The Huffington Post Canada his run has been planned for months.
A member of Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s team described the news as “exciting.”
The Liberal Party of Canada was not prepared to comment Monday.
“We let candidates announce normally their candidacy when it best fits their campaign strategy,” said a spokesman from party headquarters.
O'Regan, a friend of Trudeau's, toyed with the idea of running in Toronto, where he lives, but finally decided on St. John’s where he was born.
VOCM News reported that local realtor Jim Burton, who had announced in January he would seek the Liberal nomination, backed out of the race Sunday.
The St. John’s South—Mount Pearl seat is currently held by NDP MP Ryan Cleary. Cleary beat former Liberal MP Siobhan Coady in 2011. Coady told HuffPost earlier this year she would not run again federally. She is now seeking a provincial seat.
This wouldn’t be O'Regan first foray into politics. He worked in Ottawa as an assistant to Jean Charest during his time as a Progressive Conservative environment minister in the early 1990s. He later worked as a speechwriter for Newfoundland Liberal premier Brian Tobin.
O’Regan spent almost a decade hosting CTV’s flagship morning show “Canada AM” before moving to CTV’s National News amid much fanfare. He quietly left the network in 2012.
He told the journalism website J-Source in 2013 that he had been working on a new program for CTV that he suggested it didn’t pan out.
“[I] just needed a change. All good,” he wrote them in an email.
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