Irek Kusmierczyk (born January 16, 1978) is a Polish-Canadian politician who was elected to represent the riding of Windsor—Tecumseh in the House of Commons of Canada in the 2019 Canadian federal election. Prior to his election in the House of Commons, he was a city councillor for the

Windsor City Council The Windsor City Council is the governing body of Windsor, Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically b ...

representing Ward 7. He received his PhD in political science from

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...

,an MA in Central and Eastern European Studies from Jagiellonian University an MSc in government from the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public university, public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidn ...

, and a Bachelor of Journalism from

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to serve returning Wo ...

. He worked in government at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an Atlantic Council of Canada Fellow and published a book chapter on cross-border environmental cooperation between local governments around the Great Lakes basin. He worked on Species-at-Risk remediation around Ojibway Park as part of the Windsor Essex Parkway Project. He was born in

Kraśnik Kraśnik is a town in southeastern Poland with 35,602 inhabitants (2012), situated in the Lublin Voivodeship, historic Lesser Poland. It is the seat of Kraśnik County. The town of Kraśnik as it is known today was created in 1975, after the mer ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

. His family arrived in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

in 1983 as political refugees after his father was imprisoned as a member of the

Solidarity movement Solidarity ( pl, „Solidarność”, ), full name Independent Self-Governing Trade Union "Solidarity" (, abbreviated ''NSZZ „Solidarność”'' ), is a Polish trade union founded in August 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland. Subseq ...

, which opposed the communist dictatorship and established the first free and independent trade union in communist

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whic ...

. They immediately settled in Windsor where his father worked as an engineer in the automotive industry.

Electoral record

Federal

Municipal

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kusmierczyk, Irek 1978 births Alumni of the London School of Economics Carleton University alumni Living people Liberal Party of Canada MPs People from Kraśnik Polish emigrants to Canada Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario Vanderbilt University alumni Windsor, Ontario city councillors