Sophie Alison Kiwala (born 1962) is a former politician in

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 been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

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 ...

. She was a

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 2014 to 2018 who represented the riding of

Kingston and the Islands Kingston and the Islands (french: Kingston et les Îles) is a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the House of Commons of Canada since 1968. It covers part of the city of Kingston, Ontario and the sparse ...

Background

Kiwala was born and raised in

Kingston, Ontario Kingston is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is located on the north-eastern end of Lake Ontario, at the beginning of the St. Lawrence River and at the mouth of the Cataraqui River (south end of the Rideau Canal). The city is midway between To ...

. She moved to

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

shortly after finishing high school, and took courses at

Humber College The Humber College Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning, commonly known as Humber College, is a public College of Applied Arts and Technology in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1967, Humber has two main campuses: the Humber North c ...

. In 1986 she married and moved with her husband to

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

in the 1990s. She returned to Kingston in 1998 to look after her ailing mother. She studied political science at Queen's University. Later she worked as House of Commons Speaker

Peter Milliken Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken (born November 12, 1946) is a Canadian lawyer and politician. He was a member of the House of Commons of Canada from 1988 until his retirement in 2011 and served as Speaker of the House for 10 years beginning in 20 ...

's office manager and then as Chief of Staff to MP Ted Hsu for seven years.

Politics

Kiwala ran for the Liberal nomination after incumbent Liberal MPP John Gerretsen announced in 2013 that he would not be running for re-election. She defeated three other candidates for the nomination, including former Kingston mayor Harvey Rosen. In the 2014 Ontario election, Kiwala was elected in the riding of

, defeating

New Democrat New Democrats, also known as centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats, or moderate Democrats, are a centrist ideological faction within the Democratic Party in the United States. As the Third Way faction of the party, they are seen as cultural ...

candidate Mary Rita Holland by 6,022 votes. During her tenure, she has served as a

Parliamentary Assistant In UK politics, a parliamentary assistant is an unelected partisan member of staff employed by a Member of Parliament (MP) to assist them with their parliamentary duties. Parliamentary assistants usually work at the House of Commons in the ...

to several ministers, most recently as PA to the Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation. In 2014, Kiwala focused attention on the issue of missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada. As part of her campaign to raise awareness, she publicized the ''Faceless Doll Project'', an art project which uses faceless female dolls to represent the missing women. On October 23, 2014 she read a Members' motion in the legislature calling on the Ontario Legislature to support the National Aboriginal Organisations' call on the Federal government to initiate a public inquiry to study the issue. In July 2020, Kiwala revealed that she was running for the Ontario Liberal Party again with the nomination set to take place in 2022. This led to a race between Kiwala and her former colleague Ted Hsu. Among priorities for the office, she listed the Long Term Care Act and encouraging "a much more compassionate view of individual residents".

Election results

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kiwala, Sophie 1962 births 21st-century Canadian politicians 21st-century Canadian women politicians Humber College alumni Living people Ontario Liberal Party MPPs People from Kingston, Ontario Queen's University at Kingston alumni Women MPPs in Ontario