Niki Ashton

Early life

Ashton was born in Thompson, Manitoba. She is the daughter of Hariklia (Dimitrakopoulou) and former Manitoba provincial NDP cabinet minister Steve Ashton. Her father is English-born, and her mother is of Greek descent. She attended École Riverside School and R. D. Parker Collegiate. She later attended the Li Po Chun United World College in Hong Kong. She has a B.A in Global Political Economy from the University of Manitoba, an M.A in International Affairs from Carleton University and is currently in the process of completing her PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies at the Art Mauro Centre at the University of Manitoba. She has been an instructor at the University College of the North.

She studied human rights and social justice at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs and was also awarded the Ahmed Ali Hashi Human Rights Scholarship for her work.

In 2004 she was a coordinator and promoter of volunteering at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. With her knowledge of Greek she assisted the Canadian and Chinese Olympic teams.

Career

In 2005, she defeated incumbent New Democratic Party Member of Parliament Bev Desjarlais for the NDP nomination due, in part, to the same-sex marriage issue after Desjarlais broke party ranks to vote against the Civil Marriage Act. Desjarlais subsequently quit the party and sat as an independent for the remainder of her term; she ran against Ashton as an independent candidate in the election in the Churchill riding in the 2006 Canadian federal election. Ashton's major themes in her campaign included getting federal funding for the University College of the North, as well as getting a federal government northern development agreement.

Although the labour unions in Thompson endorsed Ashton, the NDP vote nevertheless split between Ashton and Desjarlais, and the riding was won by Liberal Party candidate Tina Keeper.

Ashton defeated Keeper in the 2008 election to regain the riding for the NDP.

On November 7, 2011, in Montreal, Ashton launched her campaign as the ninth person to join the 2012 NDP leadership race. At the age of 29, she was the youngest of the candidates. She placed seventh with 5.7% of the vote at the March 24, 2012 leadership election and was eliminated on the first ballot.

Since first being elected in 2008, Ashton was elected as the Chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women in the 40th Parliament of Canada, as has served as the NDP Post-Secondary and Youth critic, as the Rural and Community Development critic and from 2012 to 2014 as the Status of Women Critic. On January 23, 2015, Ashton was appointed as the Aboriginal Affairs Critic in Canada's Official Opposition.

After the 2015 federal election, Ashton was appointed the NDP critic for Jobs, Employment and Workforce Development in the 42nd Canadian Parliament.

Ashton announced her candidacy for the 2017 NDP leadership election on March 7, 2017.

Personal life

Ashton speaks Greek, French, English and Spanish fluently. In 2011 it was reported that she was also studying Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish, and Cree.

Ashton married Ryan Barker in 2011. They separated in 2015 and divorced in 2017.

In May 2017, Ashton announced that she was pregnant and expecting a child in November, possibly a few days after the NDP leadership election. She has stated that "Like millions of Canadian women I will carry on my work", and intends to continue with her leadership campaign.