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OTTAWA — Word was spreading Tuesday night in Ottawa and Winnipeg that Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews is about to retire.

Some sources said Toews, 60, would retire as early as Wednesday. Others said it will happen, just not Wednesday.

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Toews’ office would not comment officially on the reports Tuesday night, but a source said suggestions Toews is retiring Wednesday are not “completely correct.”

“Minister Toews is in Alberta performing his duties as minister of public safety and reinforcing the government’s commitment to respond to the flood that has affected tens of thousands of Albertans,” his spokesman Julie Carmichael said in an email.

Reports that Toews was set to leave have circulated from time to time for years. At one point, he was being vetted as a possible appointment to the judiciary in Manitoba but sources said Prime Minister Stephen Harper was not comfortable appointing a cabinet minister directly to the bench.