Canada’s Public Safety Minister Vic Toews is on the verge of retiring from politics, QMI News Agency has learned.

And despite persistent media reports in recent years that Toews is in line for a plum appointment to the judiciary, Manitoba’s regional minister is not going to the bench.

Instead, Toews, 60, will be leaving public life altogether and taking a position in the private sector, sources say.

Toews has been Canada’s public safety minister since January 2010.

No stranger to controversy, Toews has ushered in some of the Harper government’s most contentious criminal justice bills over the years, from the elimination of conditional sentences — or house arrest — for violent criminals to the gutting of the scandal-plagued long-gun registry while serving as federal justice minister from 2006 to 2007.

More recently, Toews made sweeping changes to Canada’s pardon laws by making it more difficult for some criminals to have their names wiped clean from the criminal registry.

Toews’ political life has been rocky at times. Last year, the Tory MP endured a barrage of anonymous attacks and online threats over his Internet surveillance bill.

It led to former Liberal Party staffer Adam Carroll anonymously leaking portions of Toews’ 2007 divorce files on the Internet under the Twitter handle “Vikileaks.” Carroll was later fired by his party.

It’s not yet clear where in the private sector Toews is headed.