Hunter Tootoo has resigned as fisheries minister and left the Liberal caucus, saying he was seeking treatment for alcohol addiction. His is not a unique case. Here’s a look at some other MPs who were troubled by alcohol:
Seamus O’Regan
The former television host and Liberal MP from Newfoundland took to social media in January to say he had checked into a Toronto treatment facility over the Christmas holidays to get help for a drinking problem.
O’Regan, who later told CBC−TV his family and friends had staged "an intervention", said at the time that alcohol had become a part of his daily life over the last couple of years.
"I was still working effectively and competently, but I realized, over time, that being competent was not good enough," O’Regan wrote in a statement on Facebook.
"I was far from my best self. And the simple truth is that I owe my best self to my marriage, to my family, to my friends, and to my constituents," he wrote.
Romeo Saganash
The NDP MP from northern Quebec took a break from politics to seek treatment for his alcohol addiction after he was escorted off an Air Canada Jazz flight in Montreal in October 2012, his drunken behaviour delaying the take−off to Val−d’Or, Que.
Saganash said at the time that he did not want to make excuses for his behaviour, but that he was still struggling with his experiences as a residential school survivor and the death of former NDP leader Jack Layton.
"I need help to overcome a medical problem, a dependence on alcohol, like far too many other Canadians," Saganash said in a statement.
John McCallum
The current immigration minister and Toronto−area Liberal MP was a defence minister in the government of then−prime minister Jean Chretien when an Air Canada agent barred him from boarding a flight from Toronto to Ottawa in November 2002 because he seemed too drunk to fly.
McCallum told reporters he did not have a drinking problem and was surprised to be asked to wait for the next flight after having a few glasses of wine with dinner, but decided he would stop because the incident made him realize how alcohol could embarrass him, the government and his family.
"I’ve decided to have zero alcohol consumption for that reason and also for health reasons. I’ve decided to lose some weight, and zero alcohol goes along with that," McCallum told reporters at the time.
McCallum told Maclean’s in January that he had slowly started drinking again over the years, but quit entirely again about three years ago.
-The Canadian Press
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