Karen Leibovici (born May 27, 1952) is a

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking ...

from

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

. Following a career as a social worker, Leibovici was elected to the

Legislative Assembly of Alberta The Legislative Assembly of Alberta is the deliberative assembly of the province of Alberta, Canada. It sits in the Alberta Legislature Building in Edmonton. The Legislative Assembly currently has 87 members, elected first past the post from sin ...

in 1993, representing

Edmonton Meadowlark Edmonton Meadowlark was a provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada, mandated to return a single member to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta using the first past the post method of voting from 1971 to 2019. The electoral district lo ...

as a member of the

Alberta Liberal Party The Alberta Liberal Party (french: Parti libéral de l'Alberta) is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1905, it is the oldest active political party in Alberta and was the dominant political party until the 1921 election ...

. She held that seat for two terms until her defeat in 2001. While MLA, she held the positions of labour critic, health critic, intergovernmental affairs critic and caucus whip. In the 2001 Edmonton municipal election she was elected to city council, and was subsequently re-elected in 2004 and 2007 for Ward 1 and 2010 for Ward 5. She has served as chair or vice chair of the community services, executive and transportation and public works committees, and the Edmonton Police Commission. While on the city council, Leibovici was a board member for the

Federation of Canadian Municipalities The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM, ''Fédération canadienne des municipalités'') is an advocacy group representing over 2000 Canadian municipalities. It is an organization with no formal power but significant ability to influence d ...

for nine years, and was acclaimed as the president in 2013. She was influential in spearheading the city's 10-year plan to end homelessness, revitalizing retail in west Edmonton, and through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, brokered a $53 billion infrastructure plan with the federal government for funding municipal projects across the country.

2013 municipal election

Leibovici ran for mayor in Edmonton in

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...

, against fellow councillors Don Iveson and Kerry Diotte.

2015 federal election

She was most recently a Liberal Party of Canada candidate in

Edmonton West Edmonton West (french: Edmonton-Ouest) is a federal electoral district in Alberta, Canada, that was represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1917 to 1988, from 1997 to 2004 and again since 2015. Demographics History and geography T ...

for the 2015 federal election, but lost to Conservative Party candidate Kelly McCauley.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leibovici, Karen 1952 births Living people Alberta Liberal Party MLAs Anglophone Quebec people Edmonton city councillors Jewish Canadian politicians Politicians from Montreal Women MLAs in Alberta Women municipal councillors in Canada Candidates in the 2015 Canadian federal election Alberta candidates for Member of Parliament 21st-century Canadian women politicians Liberal Party of Canada candidates for the Canadian House of Commons Jewish women politicians