Judi Tyabji

Early life

Tyabji was born in Calcutta, India in 1965 to English and Indian parents who immigrated their family in the mid-1970s to Canada, first to Toronto then to Kelowna, where she attended Catholic elementary and high schools. Her father Alan Tyabji was an executive for Calona Wines then owned Okanagan Vineyards Winery in Oliver, British Columbia. In 1986, she graduated from the University of Victoria with a degree in Political Science then went to work as an assistant for the federal Liberal party.

Politics

After Gordon Wilson became leader of the provincial Liberal party in 1987, Tyabji became their regional representative. Shortly after her giving birth to her first child, she was their nominee for a by-election in Penticton. She lost her first election to the NDP agriculture minister Bill Barlee but raised the Liberal share of vote in the riding from 2% to 11%. After Jean Chretien became the federal Liberal leader, she briefly switched to the NDP then returned to the provincial Liberals when they disconnected from the federal party in 1991.

When she was 26 years old and pregnant with her third child, Tyabji earned what was described as a "surprise victory" in her first election win in October 1991 by defeating a Social Credit cabinet minister and a prominent NDP activist to become the MLA for the newly created riding of Okanagan-East.Tyabji was the only Liberal elected in the province's Interior region that year and in the Okanagan since before World War Two. She was the youngest MLA on record at the time and the first to give birth while in office. She was also appointed Environment Critic by the Liberals.

Wilson affair

She served as an MLA for the British Columbia Liberal Party from 1991 until 1993 when Wilson's leadership of the Liberals was challenged after it came to light that he was having an extramarital affair with Tyabji, whom he had recently named as the party's House Leader. Wilson and Tyabji retained their seats in the Legislature and sat as members of a new party, the Progressive Democratic Alliance. Wilson and Tyabji then married in 1994, the same year she lost custody of her three children to her ex-husband.

In the 1996 provincial election, Wilson retained his seat, while Tyabji lost hers. Wilson afterwards, in 1997, crossed the floor to join the British Columbia New Democratic Party government of Glen Clark as Minister of Finance and Minister of Employment, Investment and International Trade. He subsequently folded his party, the PDA.

Post-politics

After leaving politics she hosted a daily talk show on Victoria-based CHEK-TV until suing CHEK for breach of contract in 1998. She served as a municipal councillor in Powell River from November 1999 until October 2001. She currently heads a software company and remains married to Wilson as Judi Tyabji Wilson.

In 2008, Tyabji, her firm Tugboat Enterprises, and The Province newspaper were sued for defamation by Blair Wilson (despite same surname not related to Gordon Wilson) who was the federal Member of Parliament for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country and who later lost his attempt at re-election. She, Gordon Wilson and Tugboat were later sued by their legal representatives Hakemi Law Corp for failure to pay legal bills. A string of legal and financial difficulties led to a court-ordered sale of their Powell River waterfront home.

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