Philpott was acclaimed as the federal
Liberal candidate in the new
riding of
Markham—Stouffville in April 2014. During the
2015 Canadian federal election campaign she was frequently called upon by the party to be a spokesperson on the subject on the
CBC programme
Power & Politics. She was critical of the Conservative government's lack of action and the returning of more than $350 million to the federal treasury in unspent funds over a three-year period, a sum that included millions for processing refugee applications and helping asylum-seekers settle into Canada. Following the
death of Alan Kurdi she joined
Marc Garneau in calling for increased refugee settlement in Canada by the end of 2015. Philpott defeated the incumbent (from the redistributed riding of
Oak Ridges—Markham),
Paul Calandra. When asked by Campbell Clark of
The Globe and Mail why she would move from medicine to politics she quoted
Rudolf Virchow, the noted German physician who had a less successful political career, to explain why she sees economics and environment as key to human health, and chose to run for office: "Politics is nothing but medicine writ large."
Minister of Health Philpott was appointed
Minister of Health in the
Cabinet of the
29th Canadian Ministry, headed by
Justin Trudeau, on November 4, 2015. She is the first medical doctor to hold the post. Philpott was also appointed to the following Cabinet Committees on November 4, 2015. •
Treasury Board (Member) • Cabinet Committee on Inclusive Growth, Opportunities and Innovation (Chair). This committee considers strategies designed to promote inclusive economic growth, opportunity, employment and social security, including sectoral strategies and initiatives. • Cabinet Committee on Intelligence and Emergency Management (Member). This committee meets "as required to consider intelligence reports and priorities and to coordinate and manage responses to public emergencies and national security incidents". It regularly reviews the state of Canadian emergency readiness. On November 9, 2015 she was appointed to chair a cabinet sub-committee to co-ordinate government efforts to resettle 25,000
Syrian refugees in Canada through government sponsorship by the end of 2015. On May 1, 2016, after the new government had been in office for six months,
David Akin, Parliamentary Bureau Chief of the
Toronto Sun, published a rating of the Liberal Cabinet's work to date in which Philpott was awarded an A+. "A real-life doctor before politics, Philpott has been a quick master of a high-profile file and is flawlessly executing against her mandate letter from the PM. She's confident talking to Canadians about health policy issues. And she's handled controversial files such legalizing marijuana and dealing with mental health crises on First Nations with pitch-perfect tone. An easy standout in Trudeau's cabinet." Alise Mills, a Vancouver-based conservative political analyst, further commented "Gracious, composed and knows her files." Issues addressed by Philpott in her first six months as
Minister of Health include:
Syrian refugees; removal of cuts to refugee health plans made by the previous government;
Safe Injection Sites; renegotiation of the Canada Health Accord with the provinces; establishment of a
pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance; Indigenous health care issues, in particular mental health, including high rates of suicide, improving infrastructure for clean water on reserves, reforming child welfare to reduce the over-apprehension of Indigenous children, and violence in
La Loche, Saskatchewan, and the
Attawapiskat First Nation; the
Zika virus outbreak; and the
legalization of marijuana where she announced the government's plans at the
United Nations on
April 20, 2016. On May 11, 2016, Philpott was appointed to the "Ad Hoc Committee on Northern Alberta Wildfires", a new ad hoc Cabinet committee to coordinate federal efforts to help the thousands of Canadians affected by the
wildfires that raged through Northern Alberta in May 2016. During the week of May 22–28, 2016, she chaired the annual
Commonwealth Health Ministers meeting in
Geneva, Switzerland and also led the Canadian delegation at the
69th World Health Assembly (WHA).
Minister of Indigenous Services Philpott became the inaugural
Minister of Indigenous Services in a cabinet shuffle on August 28, 2017; she was succeeded by
Ginette Petitpas Taylor at the Ministry of Health.
President of the Treasury Board On January 14, 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau moved Philpott from her cabinet Indigenous Services portfolio to her new role as
President of the Treasury Board. On March 4, 2019, Philpott resigned from her position in the cabinet as President of the Treasury Board, citing her inability to reconcile with the government's handling of the
SNC-Lavalin affair.
Independent MP On April 2, 2019, Philpott was expelled from the Liberal parliamentary caucus. Though already nominated to run as a Liberal in the next federal election, Philpott subsequently announced that she would run as an independent candidate for
Markham—Stouffville in the
2019 Canadian federal election. On August 14, 2019, Mario Dion, the Parliament of Canada's Ethics Commissioner, released a report that said Trudeau contravened section 9 of the
Conflict of Interest Act by improperly pressuring
Attorney-General Jody Wilson-Raybould to drop a criminal case against SNC-Lavalin. The report details lobbying efforts by SNC-Lavalin to influence prosecution since at least February 2016, including its lobbying efforts against enacting
deferred prosecution legislation. The report analyses SNC-Lavalin's interests and finds that the lobbying effort advanced private interests of the company, rather than public interests. The report's analysis section discusses the topics of prosecutorial independence and the
Shawcross doctrine (dual role of Attorney General) to draw the conclusion that the influence was improper and a violation of
Conflict of Interest Act thereby validating Philpott's decision to resign from cabinet over the affair. On September 3, 2019, Philpott was the only Independent candidate among the 25 candidates endorsed for the 2019 election by the
GreenPAC environmental organization founded in 2014 with the goal to help recruit, elect, and support environmental leadership in Canadian politics. She ran for re-election in the 2019 federal election as an Independent but lost. == Post-parliamentary career ==