Dr. David McKeown, Toronto’s unflappable guardian of public health, is retiring after 12 years in the controversy-courting job.

McKeown announced Friday, via news release, that he will cease to be the medical officer of health in July. That is when his last big file — supervised injection sites for intravenous drug users — goes to city council.

His roughly 30-year career includes stints overseeing public health for the old City of Toronto and Peel Region. He has been a calm figure at the centre of some big fights, staking a position and pushing for social change on issues including smoking, breastfeeding, bedbugs, pesticides, cycling, poverty, casinos and speed limits.

At city hall McKeown is known as a blue-suited, buttoned-down activist, ready to follow the science to sometimes unpopular conclusions. As a result, he has felt the sting of public rebuke by his political masters.

The most famous case was in 2012 when then-mayor Rob Ford branded McKeown’s pitch for a reduction in speed limits — based on science that said it would reduce deaths and serious injuries — as “nuts, nuts, nuts.” Ford and his councillor brother Doug then used their radio show to brand McKeown’s salary “an embarrassment.”

Rob Ford later issued a public apology. Toronto-East York councillors later lowered limits on side streets.

In an interview when he was under fire, McKeown chuckled and expressed no regrets.

“My job is to provide the best advice based on the best available science and my professional judgment,” he said.

“The elected officials have the challenging job of making the trade-offs and balancing interests and deciding what, in the end, is best for the community.”

Asked if that is the most pushback in his long career, McKeown recalled the late 1990s fight to ban smoking in public places.

“Council chambers were filled and protesters were taken out in handcuffs,” said the father of two grown children who is married to a palliative care physician. “There definitely have been many more contentious issues.”

Councillor Joe Mihevc, chair of the public health board, is an unabashed admirer.

“I’ve had the most wonderful time ever working with him,” Mihevc said Friday. “I think he is, frankly, one of the best civic leaders we’ve ever had.

“He is a progressive scientist who knows where things need to go, and that’s why he’s one of the most senior people in Canada on public health.”

McKeown’s job involves responding to imminent threats, from cronut burgers sickening people at the Canadian National Exhibition to Toronto’s response to the H1N1 pandemic.

However, he also fought for free breakfasts for low-income students, against a downtown casino and for changes to make moms feel more comfortable breastfeeding in public.

“He’s taken a very broad approach to public health,” said Councillor Paula Fletcher. “He’s been a fastidious, steady hand on a lot of sensitive issues.”

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Ford was not the only politician irked by McKeown’s expansive approach. Deputy Mayor Denzil Minnan-Wong said in the past that McKeown should become a transportation bureaucrat if he wants to lower speed limits, and the doctor should “stick to his knitting.”

Toronto’s public health board will recommend to city council a replacement for McKeown. After council makes its choice, the appointment must be ratified by Ontario’s health minister

Mihevc, who was caught off-guard by McKeown’s announcement, said the search will start immediately and be national, if not international.