OTTAWA 鈥� The federal New Democrats have yet to ask former leader and soon-departing NDP MP Tom Mulcair to help campaign in his Montreal riding when a byelection is called.

When asked on CTV's Question Period if the NDP have tapped him to help hold on to the riding in what鈥檚 set to be a tough fight to fend off the Liberals, Mulcair said: "Not so far."

"But I'm sure that they鈥檙e working on it and I鈥檇 be glad to do whatever they ask," he told host Evan Solomon.

Muclair, who currently represents Outremont, Que., is set to retire from politics and resign his House of Commons seat when the spring sitting of Parliament ends in June.

Shaping up to be a largely symbolic race, it is expected the Liberals will be putting serious effort into reclaiming what had been a party stronghold riding until the former Quebec Liberal cabinet minister claimed it in a 2007 byelection.

"I hope that the party is able to find just the right candidate and whatever they ask me to do to help them, I will do," Mulcair said.

In the 2015 federal election Mulcair won the riding with 19,242 votes or 44.1 per cent of the vote. Liberal candidate Rachel Bendayan came second, claiming 14,597 votes and 33.5 per cent of the vote.

Bendayan is running to be the candidate for the Liberals again in 2019.

She was recently in the news for not following up on reported allegations of misconduct about a colleague while working as Bardish Chagger鈥檚 chief of staff in her small business and tourism portfolio.

Outremont is a predominantly bilingual residential borough in Montreal. The federal riding had 71,136 registered voters as of 2015.

Mulcair was leader of the NDP from 2012 until 2016, when he lost the leadership vote that paved the way for Jagmeet Singh to claim the top post in October 2017.

Mulcair has only spoken in the House of Commons twice since Singh took the helm, one in November to discuss the Rohingya crisis, and once to recognize Hanukkah.

Earlier this year, the Universite de Montreal announced that following his political departure, Mulcair will be joining the university鈥檚 political science department as a visiting professor.

"Which is right in the heart of the riding and it鈥檚 not a far walk to go and give them a hand," Mulcair said.