Veteran Scarborough MP Karygiannis steps down to run in municipal election

OTTAWA—Veteran Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis is stepping down after nearly a quarter-century of representing Scarborough-Agincourt in the House of Commons to run in the upcoming municipal election.

The resignation is immediate, which means yet another byelection will need to be called in the GTA this year. Trinity—Spadina is also vacant, after NDP MP Olivia Chow resigned her seat to run for the mayor’s job in Toronto.

Question marks had been hanging over Karygiannis’ future since he stopped being the veterans’ affairs critic for the Liberals last month. Though he said at the time he intended to run again in 2015, he announced his resignation in the Commons after question period on Tuesday.

Karygiannis told the Commons that he hopes to serve the voters of Scarborough-Agincourt in “another capacity.”

Karygiannis said he will run for the Toronto Council Ward 39 seat held by Mike Del Grande, who announced he won't be running again.

Karygiannis, 59, acquired a reputation as a hardball political player in the 26 years since he was first elected in 1988 and his deep connections to immigrant communities made him a formidable organizer throughout Liberal leadership dramas of the past decades.

Known as “Jimmy K,” he could often be found in the thick of the nastier struggles within the fractious Liberal party, famously accused once of jamming gum into payphones to sabotage his rivals at a delegate-selection meeting.

He earned a maverick reputation early in his time as an MP, nearly getting ousted from caucus in 1991 in a diplomatic furor over human rights in Trinidad.

Greek-born, he immigrated to Canada with his parents when he was 11. The family settled in Toronto and Karygiannis went on to receive an industrial engineer’s degree from the University of Toronto. Married with five daughters, Karygiannis worked in the family shoe store before he embarked on his political career.