Name Melanie Joly Role Canadian Politician | Political party Liberal | |
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Alma mater Universite de MontrealOxford University Similar People Denis Coderre, John McCallum, Justin Trudeau, Kirsty Duncan Profiles | ||
Heritage minister m lanie joly
Mélanie Joly, PC MP (born January 16, 1979) is a Canadian lawyer, public relations expert, and politician. She is a Liberal member of the House of Commons of Canada representing Ahuntsic-Cartierville and also serves as the Minister of Canadian Heritage in the present Cabinet, headed by Justin Trudeau. In 2013, she was a runner-up in Montreal municipal elections for the position of mayor obtaining 26.50% of the votes, trailing Mayor elect Denis Coderre. She won in Ahuntsic-Cartierville in the 2015 Canadian federal election with 47.5% of the votes cast.
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Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly on #MeToo and CanCon in the Netflix era
Education
Born at Fleury Hospital in 1979, she grew up in Montreal's north shore neighbourhood of Ahuntsic. Joly's father is Clément Joly, an accountant who was president of the Liberal Party of Canada's finance committee in Quebec and manager of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority from 2002 to 2007 and husband of Carole-Marie Allard, lawyer, journalist and member of the House of Commons of Canada representing Laval—East from 2000 to 2004.
After completing her degree in Law (Honours) at the Université de Montréal in 2001, Joly became a member of the Barreau du Québec. She subsequently received the Chevening scholarship and continued her studies at the University of Oxford where she obtained a master's degree (Magister Juris) in comparative and public law in 2003. Joly also interned at Radio-Canada, in 2007.
Career
At the beginning of her career, Joly practiced law at two major Montreal law firms, Stikeman Elliott and Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg. At the latter firm, her mentor was former Parti Quebecois Premier Lucien Bouchard, who supplied her with a letter of recommendation for her Oxford application. She worked primarily in the areas of civil and commercial litigation, bankruptcy and insolvency law. She was also a prosecutor before the Gomery Commission of inquiry.
She then made the leap into the world of communications and was quickly appointed managing partner of the public relations firm Cohn & Wolfe's Montreal. In 2013, she was appointed to head the Quebec Advisory Committee for Justin Trudeau’s leadership campaign of the Liberal Party of Canada.
Passionate about public policy, she along with her colleagues founded Generation of Ideas, which is a political forum for 25- to 35-year-olds. She is also a member of the collective group Sortie 13, where she penned a contribution entitled "Les villes au pouvoir ou comment relancer le monde municipal québécois".
In June 2013, Joly announced her candidacy for mayor of Montreal in light of the elections which occurred in the same year. On November 3, election day, she obtained 26.50% of the votes, finishing second to current mayor Denis Coderre and ahead of several more established challengers.
In 2015, Joly left municipal politics and announced her candidacy for the nomination of the Liberal Party of Canada in the new electoral district of Ahuntsic-Cartierville for the 2015 federal election. Joly won the riding of Ahuntsic-Cartierville with 47.5% of the vote, unseating incumbent Maria Mourani. After the election, Joly was named as the Minister of Canadian Heritage as part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's 29th Canadian Ministry.
Other activities
In addition to her professional activities, Joly is involved in the philanthropic sector. In 2010, she became the first Quebecker to receive the Arnold Edinborough award, which recognizes philanthropic involvement within the Canadian cultural community. To this day, she is spokesperson for Logis Rose-Virginie and ambassador for La rue des Femmes.
Joly has served on several committees and boards of directors (see list below).
On October 15, 2014, she published her first book entitled Changer les règles du jeu. This publication dealt with the balance of power between the different levels of government and the division between political powers and the population. It also discussed other issues such as climate change, public transportation and the growth of social inequalities.