Ryan Leef wants his old job back as Yukon's Conservative MP
CBC
Ryan Leef, the former Yukon MP who lost his seat in Parliament a decade ago, wants to have another go at it.
Leef was selected this past weekend as the territory's Conservative candidate in the upcoming federal election. Party members held a nomination vote in Whitehorse and Leef was chosen over former MLA Patrick Rouble.
CBC News has tried to contact Leef by phone, email and through social media but has not had a response.
In a social media video last month, Leef said he was seeking his party's nomination to "bring a common sense message back to Ottawa."
"I hope that my 40 years here in the territory, my experience working, living and playing here in the Yukon, and living in many of our communities ... demonstrates that I have the experience to carry your voice."
Leef was first elected to Parliament in 2011, unseating the longtime Liberal MP Larry Bagnell by a narrow margin. Leef won with 33.8 per cent of the vote to Bagnell's 32.9 per cent.
After one term as a backbencher in former prime minister Stephen Harper's minority government, Leef ran for reelection in 2015.
He made national headlines during that campaign when late one night, dressed in camo gear, he emerged from some bushes in Whitehorse to make a citizen's arrest and handcuff a woman who had been vandalizing his campaign signs.
Leef ended up losing his seat in that 2015 election to Bagnell, who rode Justin Trudeau's Liberal wave and scored a landslide victory with 53.7 per cent of the vote, to Leef's 24.3 per cent. Leef then sat out the next two federal elections.
Most recently, he's working as the bylaw manager for the City of Whitehorse.
Speaking to the Yukon News last month, Leef said a decade can bring "maturity and growth and learning," and that his "days of jumping out of the bushes are long over."
Leef is the fourth confirmed candidate in Yukon for the upcoming federal election.
Liberal Brendan Hanley is seeking a second term as MP, while Gabrielle Dupont is running for the Green Party and André Fortin is representing the People's Party of Canada. The NDP has not yet announced its Yukon candidate.
The federal election is widely expected to be called sometime in the coming days.
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