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Potential Liberal leadership candidate, Former MP Gerard Kennedy after his defeat to NDP candidate Peggy Nash for Parkdale High Park in the federal election May 2, 2011.Moe Doiron/The Globe and Mail

Former Ontario cabinet minister Gerard Kennedy is considering running for the leadership of the provincial Liberal party.

Mr. Kennedy said Thursday that he has been approached to run by several people since Dalton McGuinty announced that he will resign as Ontario Premier on Monday and prorogued the legislature.

"I am seriously considering it," he said. "I think I'm just trying to appreciate whether there is a unique role that some people are proposing that I can contribute. I am not at that point."

He said he had been contemplating a run for the federal Liberal leadership, but "in the last few days it has been very intense around the provincial [race] in terms of people approaching me about that."

Mr. Kennedy spent 10 years at Queen's Park from 1996 to 2006, serving as Education Minister for three years under Mr. McGuinty. He also ran for the leadership against Mr. McGuinty in 1996, finishing second. He resigned in 2006 to seek the federal leadership, withdrawing to support eventual winner Stéphane Dion. He was elected to the House of Commons in 2008 in the Toronto riding of Parkdale-High Park, losing his seat in 2011. Since then he has run a business called Enterprising for the Public Good.

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