He stepped down in 2010 in order to prepare his campaign after deciding to run in the 2011 Canadian federal election, and was succeeded as director of communications by Dimitri Soudas.
Williamson has called repeatedly for the creation of a federal Sunshine list that would publish the salary information of public servants who earn over $100,000 per year, as is done in some provinces.
[16] Williamson is also responsible for creating public calls for an oil pipeline from Alberta to Saint John, New Brunswick that would carry undistilled petroleum product to the east and across the St. Lawrence River for refining at the J. D. Irving plant.
[17] On June 1, 2012 a story about Williamson's dismay in regard to International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda's travel expense claims surfaced in a CBC article.
In March 2013 Williamson joined several backbench Conservative MPs in speaking to a point of privilege launched by MP Mark Warawa to the Speaker.
[25] In 2019, two scientists, Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, were escorted out of the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg and had their security clearances revoked.
[27] On February 19, 2024, the ad hoc committee sent their report to the house leaders of each recognized party in the House of Commons, stating that "the majority of the PHAC material should be lifted," and "[t]he information appears to be mostly about protecting the organization from embarrassment for failures in policy and implementation, not legitimate national security concerns, and its release is essential to hold the Government to account.
[33] On March 8, 2015, the media reported that Williamson made this remark about the Temporary Foreign Workers Program: "It makes no sense to pay 'whities' to stay home while we bring in brown people to work in these jobs."
Williamson was quoted[36] as saying "[l]ike a lot of Canadians, when I heard this story I was outraged and concerned that once again the Toronto Police had targeted the wrong individual" referring to the previous case of David Chen who had been charged when he apprehended a thief who had been stealing from his Chinatown store.