November 13, 2015

Ukrainian Canadian women take lead role in Canadian politics

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OTTAWA – Canada’s new prime minister, liberal Justin Trudeau, unveiled a gender-balanced Cabinet that includes two female Ukrainian Canadian ministers.

The new Official Opposition Leader he will face in the House of Commons also is a woman of Ukrainian Canadian descent.

The two female Ukrainian Canadian parliamentarians in Mr. Trudeau’s Cabinet are: high-profile journalist and author Chrystia Freeland, who made the transition from opposition Liberal international trade critic to become Canada’s new International Trade Minister – only the second woman in Canadian history to hold that post; and MaryAnn Mihychuk, a former provincial Cabinet minister from Manitoba who now serves as Canada’s Minister of Employment, Workplace Development and Labor.

Trade was a big deal for the Conservatives. Under Prime Minister Harper’s watch, Canada concluded trade agreements with 39 countries, including one with Ukraine earlier this year. But two major trade deals await ratification: one involving the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership; the other, with the 28 member states in the European Union. Minister Freeland’s job will be to shepherd both agreements through Parliament.

Fortunately Ms. Freeland, the Harvard and Oxford-educated, 47-year-old Liberal MP for the Toronto riding of University-Rosedale, earned her stripes as a freelance reporter in Ukraine, later editor, with such prominent publications as London’s Financial Times, the Toronto-based Globe and Mail and Thomson Reuters, and as the author of the much-talked about 2012 book, “Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else,” which gave her an eye and an ability to pick out details quickly. She will need those skills. The recently released final version of the TPP numbers more than 6,000 pages.

Meanwhile, Ms. Mihychuk – who said “Diakuyu” (thank you in Ukrainian) to Janice Charette, clerk of the Privy Council, after being sworn into office on November 4 – is set to play a role in the collective bargaining process with the federal public service, which had a fractious relationship with the Harper government.

Canada’s new employment and labor minister, and Liberal MP for the Winnipeg riding of Kildonon-St. Paul, has significant experience overseeing civil servants. During her nine years as a member of the Manitoba legislature, 60-year-old Ms. Mihychuk served as industry, trade and mines minister (she’s also a geoscientist) and later as intergovernmental affairs minister in Manitoba’s pro-labor New Democratic Party government.

She left the NDP and joined the federal Liberals last year when she won the nomination to run this year as the party’s candidate in Kildonon-St. Paul, where the Liberals placed third in the last federal election four years ago.

Rona Ambrose, who held nine Cabinet portfolios in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, succeeded him on November 5 as the Conservative Party’s interim leader. Since the Tories will hold the second-party position in the House with 99 seats they won in the October 19 federal election, 46-year-old Ms. Ambrose will also serve as leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition (the title makes reference to Queen Elizabeth II as Canada’s head of state).

Born Ronalee Chapchuk in Valleyview, Alberta, on March 15, 1969, Ms. Ambrose (she kept first husband Bruce Ambrose’s family name) was first elected to Parliament in 2004 and represented the Alberta riding of Edmonton-Spruce Grove until this year, when she was re-elected in the newly named Edmonton-area riding of Sturgeon River-Parkland.

After spending her first two years as a member of Parliament in the Official Opposition, Ms. Ambrose was appointed environment minister when Mr. Harper won the 2006 federal election and formed a minority government. She became the youngest female Cabinet minister in Canadian history.

The environment file became one of Ms. Ambrose’s highest-profile Cabinet jobs, and one of the most contentious when she was placed in the politically uncomfortable position of announcing that Canada would not meet its greenhouse gas emission-reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol, which former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government signed in 1997 and ratified in 2002.

Ms. Ambrose headed the Environment department for less than a year before she was shuffled into Intergovernmental Affairs, followed by Labor, Public Works and Government Services, and her most recent Cabinet posting as Health Minister.

When Parliament returns to business next month, Ms. Ambrose will take her seat as Opposition Leader in the House of Commons, which would have been Mr. Harper’s had he not resigned, and lead her Conservative caucus in the next parliamentary session as its temporary leader. (The federal Conservative Party’s constitution prohibits her, as interim leader, from running as a candidate in the party leadership race, a date for which has not yet been set.)

However, Ms. Ambrose’s new parliamentary role affords her some privilege. She gets a car with a driver, and a $80,100 (about $60,000 U.S.) increase in the $167,400 (about $126,000 U.S.) base salary she receives as a Member of Parliament. Ms. Ambrose and her husband, JP Veitch, a private investment businessman and former rodeo bull rider, will also live at Stornoway, the Opposition Leader’s official residence. (By contrast, the Prime Minister’s official residence, which is badly in need of repairs, remains unoccupied as Ms. Ambrose’s fellow Generation X-er, 43-year-old Mr. Trudeau, his wife and three young children have chosen to live on the grounds of Governor General David Johnston’s residence, Rideau Hall, in a 22-room room home, called Rideau Cottage, normally occupied by his secretary.)

Prime Minister Trudeau and Opposition Leader Ambrose – who have both been voted the “sexiest MPs” by The Hill Times weekly newspaper covering Parliament – will live across the street (Sussex Drive) from one another, and it’s possible their neighborliness could extend beyond their geographic proximity to one another.

Shortly after Conservative MPs and senators chose her over seven candidates as their new interim leader, Ms. Ambrose signaled a departure in tone and position taken by Mr. Harper on a few key issues. She said she would attend the United Nations climate change talks in Paris later this month, at Mr. Trudeau’s invitation, and supports the prime minister’s commitment to hold an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in Canada. (Mr. Harper’s government withdrew Canada from the Kyoto accord almost four years ago, and he rejected calls for an inquiry on the latter issue.)

Ms. Mihychuk’s and Ms. Freeland’s appointment to Prime Minister Trudeau’s Cabinet marks a “historic first,” noted Taras Zalusky, national executive director of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) in Ottawa.

“In the 125 years since Ukrainians first immigrated to Canada, the Ukrainian Canadian community has never had such strong representation in the Federal Cabinet,” he said in a news release.

UCC National President Paul Grod issued his own statement following Ms. Ambrose’s election as Opposition leader, which along with the appointments of Ministers Freeland and Mihychuk is “a showcase of the talent and intellect of Ukrainian Canadian women elected in this Parliament.”

The UCC also announced that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was the first foreign leader to call Mr. Trudeau once he assumed the office of Prime Minister of Canada on November 4 and noted that the president had invited him to visit Ukraine.

Mr. Trudeau also reportedly assured Mr. Poroshenko that Canada would continue to help Ukraine protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as implement “systemic internal reforms.”

It also turned out that the October 19 Canadian election resulted in a dozen Ukrainian Canadian MPs, or one more than the 11 previously reported.

Conservative star candidate Dianne Watts, the former three-term mayor of British Columbia’s second-largest city of Surrey, won the newly created British Columbia riding of South Surrey-White Rock for the Tories with 24,394 votes or 1,439 votes more than the Liberal candidate, who placed second.

The 56-year-old rookie parliamentarian is a second-generation with Ukrainian and Yugoslavian roots.

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