Nathaniel Erskine-Smith (born June 15, 1984) is a Canadian politician who was the member of Parliament (MP) for Beaches—East York from 2015 to 2026. A member of the Liberal Party, Erskine-Smith served as Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities from December 2024 to May 2025.
Before entering politics, he was a commercial litigation lawyer. Also a member of the provincial Ontario Liberal Party, Erskine-Smith was the runner-up in the party's 2023 leadership election as well as a prospective candidate in the upcoming 2026 race. However, in May 2026, he was unsuccessful in seeking the party's nomination for the Scarborough Southwest provincial by-election and appealed the nomination due to allegations of irregularities. Erskine-Smith later resigned from Parliament on July 7, 2026.
On August 18, 2026, Erskine-Smith announced that he was a candidate for Toronto City Councillor in Ward 19 Beaches—East York in the 2026 Toronto municipal election.
Early life and education Erskine-Smith was born on June 15, 1984, in Toronto, Ontario, and attended Bowmore Elementary School and Malvern Collegiate Institute. His parents, Sara Erskine and Lawrence Smith, were public school teachers. He has a brother.
Erskine-Smith attended Queen's University, where he completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in politics in 2007 before completing law school in 2010. While a student at Queen's, Erskine-Smith attempted to start a business selling panini sandwiches. His experience dealing with bureaucracy led him to run unsuccessfully for city council for the Sydenham District in Kingston, Ontario, in the 2006 municipal elections, coming in third despite being endorsed by the Whig-Standard and Queen’s Journal. Erskine-Smith later described his attempt to Althia Raj as "naive", saying that he knocked on no doors and spent his time researching local issues.
Erskine-Smith then went on to study political philosophy and constitutional law at the University of Oxford, where he earned a Master of Laws (BCL) degree in 2013. He focused on the evolution of section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, with references to assisted dying, prostitution and marijuana. In addition, during his time at both universities, he played on their baseball teams as a pitcher.
Legal career Erskine-Smith practised commercial litigation as an associate at Kramer Simaan Dhillon after working as a law student at Aird & Berlis LLP. He told Raj that he found some advantages in commercial litigation that helped him but felt that he could make a bigger impact advocating for issues that affect more Canadians.
Erskine-Smith also volunteered for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. He took on pro bono cases for a range of clients and causes, including a civil liberties case to protect religious freedom in Ontario's school system. In a notable civil liberties case in 2014, Erskine-Smith successfully argued against compulsory religious studies at publicly funded high schools in Ontario.
Political career
Backbench MP (2015–2024) In November 2013, Erskine-Smith announced his candidacy for the Liberal nomination in Beaches—East York, citing Justin Trudeau's call for more youth involvement in politics, Trudeau's advocacy for empowering MPs, and positive politics as reasons to run. Erskine-Smith based his nomination campaign on lessons learned from his 2006 municipal campaign and signed up nine hundred riding members. In December 2014, he defeated four candidates to become the Liberal nominee.
Erskine-Smith was elected to the House of Commons in the 2015 federal election. He beat incumbent New Democrat MP Matthew Kellway, who was elected in 2011.
Erskine-Smith was vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics during the 42nd Parliament.
In the first episode of the television series Political Blind Date in 2017, Erskine-Smith and Conservative MP Garnett Genuis discussed their differing perspectives on the legalization of cannabis in Canada. They also appeared on the last episode in 2022, where they discussed their differing perspectives on addressing Canada's opioid crisis.
Erskine-Smith was re-elected in the 2019 election and 2021 election, in which he received more than twice as many votes as his nearest competitor.
Uncommons Podcast At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Erskine-Smith launched the Uncommons Podcast as a substitute for local town hall meetings. The episodes feature prominent guests, including members of all major parties, and often seek to showcase his thinking on a given issue.
In June 2022, Erskine-Smith hosted former Conservative leader Erin O'Toole, who commented on the 2022 Conservative leadership race, expressing his concern that "the populism of anger or frustration or dislocation" can undermine institutions and national unity. In June 2024, fellow Conservative MP Arnold Viersen sent a letter to Erskine-Smith stating that he felt "ambushed" by Erskine-Smith after it was revealed on the podcast that he would ban same-sex marriage and abortion, and that some members of the Conservative caucus felt the same way. Viersen later walked back his podcast comments, and Erskine-Smith, who felt that those views were anathema to most Canadians, told reporters that he was surprised by the letter, stating that Viersen was well known for his anti-abortion advocacy.
In October 2024, Erskine-Smith hosted both Prime Minister Trudeau, who expressed regret over his handling of electoral reform, and Mark Carney, who teased his future political plans and agreed with Erskine-Smith's comments on increasing housing supply so that first-time home buyers could have a home, on separate episodes of the podcast.
2023 Ontario Liberal leadership campaign Erskine-Smith ran for the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party in the 2023 Ontario Liberal Party leadership election. He positioned himself as a generational-change candidate and distanced himself from previous leaders of the party, criticizing, for example, senior Liberals who wanted Ontario Greens leader Mike Schreiner to lead their party instead. Erskine-Smith focused his campaign on grassroots renewal, rebuilding the party organization, and a political focus on "fairness". He stated that he saw idealism, optimism and rebuilt party operations in the federal Liberals of 2015 and felt that approach should be applied to their provincial counterparts. Erskine-Smith also ran on what he described as "progressive and pragmatic ideas" on issues such as health care, senior care, climate change and wealth inequality.
Erskine-Smith was critical of fellow leadership candidate Bonnie Crombie's desire to move the party to the centre-right because he felt that centre-right governments lacked ambition. A month before the vote, he joined fellow Liberal MP and leadership candidate Yasir Naqvi in a mutual-support pact to rank each other as the second choice in an attempt to defeat Crombie, the perceived front-runner. Both felt that they shared the same priorities during the campaign, that the best way to win the upcoming election was to build a party around Liberal values, and that Crombie's leadership would face criticisms similar to those directed at Premier Doug Ford's Conservatives.
Crombie, however, was elected on the third ballot with 53.4 per cent, ahead of Erskine-Smith, who came in second with 46.6 per cent.
Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities (2024–2025) In January 2024, Erskine-Smith announced that he would not be running in the next federal election, but he changed his mind later in the year when Trudeau appointed him minister of housing, infrastructure and communities on December 20, 2024, in a Cabinet shuffle following Sean Fraser's resignation. During a press conference after his appointment to the role, Erskine-Smith stated, "I understand there’s going to be a short runway," and said his goal would be "to make the biggest difference that I can." Due to his appointment, he reversed his initial decision not to run in the 2025 federal election. Erskine-Smith later explained that he talked to his family and got their approval before accepting the position, and cited his comparison of Pierre Poilievre's Conservative ideology to the Reform Party as another reason for his reversal.
In January, Erskine-Smith revealed that he was going to work with the government and push for policies driving supply rather than demand. He reaffirmed the government's support for the Canada Public Transit Fund, which would allow municipalities to modernize their public transit systems by supporting high-density housing and eliminating mandatory minimum parking requirements within eight hundred metres of transit lines. He was publicly critical of the Ontario government for reducing spending on social housing. In March, Erskine-Smith sent a letter to Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow warning that any move to block six-plexes would result in twenty-five per cent less federal funding than had been pledged annually to Toronto from the Housing Accelerator Fund, a program that incentivizes cities to build more housing.
Erskine-Smith remained in that role under the 30th Canadian Ministry of Mark Carney and was re-elected on April 28, 2025, with the largest vote total for an MP in Toronto. However, when Carney reshuffled his cabinet on May 13, 2025, Erskine-Smith was dropped and replaced by Gregor Robertson. After being dropped from cabinet, Erskine-Smith issued a social media statement taking issue with how he had been dropped, expressing disappointment that he and his team would not be able to build upon the work they had started but saying that he would shift his attention elsewhere.
Return to the backbenches (2025–2026) Following his departure from cabinet, Erskine-Smith released a video criticizing his government’s budget for failing to live up to expectations on climate, housing and international development assistance. Conservative politicians Chris Warkentin and Melissa Lantsman used the video to argue that there was tension within the Liberal caucus. Erskine-Smith later told Raj that there was no tension and that Carney personally told him that, while they were not going to agree on everything, he liked the video, finding it well-produced and constructive. After a 2025 Toronto Star investigation revealed that illicit drugs were being advertised on Meta platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, Erskine-Smith intended to pass a motion requiring Meta to explain its lack of action in addressing these issues by appearing before the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology. He also viewed this as a double standard because Meta was able to block news content for Canadian users.
On May 12, Erskine-Smith said he would resign his seat in Parliament at the end of June 2026 once the House of Commons rose for its summer break. He said he would have resigned earlier but was asked to delay his resignation by the Prime Minister's Office because the government had only a minority in Parliament until April, when it gained a majority due to floor crossings.
Ontario provincial politics After a group of Ontario Liberals called New Leaf Liberals was formed to criticize Crombie's performance in the 2025 Ontario election, Erskine-Smith called for renewal in the party and urged his supporters to register for the Ontario Liberal Party's annual general meeting in September 2025 in order to vote against her in that meeting's leadership review. He backed the New Leaf Liberal demand that Crombie step down if she received the support of less than two-thirds of delegates in the review vote. After Crombie received only 57% support and subsequently resigned the leadership due to a caucus revolt, Erskine-Smith was seen as the presumptive front-runner to succeed her. However, while he admitted that the party was stronger because of her efforts, he was undecided on whether to run a second time for the leadership.