VANCOUVER - Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson says he has no regrets jumping to the Conservatives from the Liberals two years ago and in fact will be a major backroom player in the upcoming election.

Emerson is not running for re-election in his Vancouver-Kingsway riding.

But the former business executive and top B.C. bureaucrat says he's agreed to be one of the national co-chairs of the Tories' election campaign.

Emerson says despite being recruited by then-Liberal prime minister Paul Martin in 2004, he now believes Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives are best equipped to lead Canada.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Emerson says he informed Harper a year ago that he likely would not run for re-election but didn't make the decision until last weekend after consulting his family.

Emerson says if he had run, it would have been in Vancouver-Kingsway, despite the anger raised by his decision to jump to the Tories just days after being elected as a Liberal in 2006.