Gerry Ritz, one of the longest serving Conservative members of Parliament, is leaving federal political life.
Sources tell The Canadian Press the former agriculture minister and MP for a Saskatchewan riding is expected to make the announcement this week.
Ritz was first elected in 1997 as a member of the Reform Party, and went on to win his seat in every subsequent federal election.
Between 2007 and 2015, he served as agriculture minister under former prime minister Stephen Harper, overseeing among other things the marquee Conservative promise to overhaul the Canadian Wheat Board.
In 2008, in the midst of an outbreak of listeriosis that killed about 20 people, he drew widespread condemnation for cracking a joke that the political damage from the issue was "like a death by a thousand cuts. Or should I say cold cuts.''
He later apologized for the remark, which Harper's office had called tasteless and completely inappropriate.