Introduction
Mélanie Joly PC MP (born January 16, 1979) is a Canadian lawyer and politician who has served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2021. A member of the Liberal Party, Joly represents the Montreal area riding of Ahuntsic-Cartierville in the House of Commons, taking office as member of Parliament (MP) following the 2015 federal election. She has held a number of portfolios including Canadian heritage, tourism, and La Francophonie. Joly ran for mayor of Montreal in the 2013 Montreal municipal election, placing second behind eventual winner Denis Coderre.
Education
Born at Fleury Hospital in 1979, she grew up in Montreal's northern neighbourhood of Ahuntsic. Joly's father is Clément Joly, an accountant who was president of the Liberal Party's finance committee in Quebec and manager of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority from 2002 to 2007 and husband of Carole-Marie Allard, a lawyer, journalist and an MP representing Laval—East from 2000 to 2004.
After completing her degree in law 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.
In 2013, she was appointed to head the Quebec Advisory Committee for Justin Trudeau’s leadership campaign of the Liberal Party of Canada.
Along with her colleagues, she 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 the elections which occurred in the same year. She founded a new party, Vrai changement pour Montréal, to support her candidacy. On November 3, election day, she obtained 26.50% of the votes, finishing six points behind the winner, Denis Coderre. However, she finished 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 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. On August 28, 2018, Joly was shuffled to the tourism, official languages, and La Francophonie portfolio.
She assumed the position of Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages on December 13, 2019. Her mandate was marked by the introduction of separate regional development agencies for Western Canada: Canada Economic Development for the Prairies (PrairieCan) and Canada Economic Development for the Pacific (PacifiCan).
On June 15, 2021, she introduced Bill C-32 in the House of Commons, an Act to achieve substantive equality of English and French and to strengthen the Official Languages Act. First reform since 1988, the Minister's modernization was intended to ensure that the government's broad range of measures in support of official languages responded to and adapted to the challenges faced by these languages in the various regions of the country.
Electoral history
| 2021 Canadian federal election: Ahuntsic-Cartierville | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | Expenditures | |||
| Liberal | Mélanie Joly | 26,402 | 52.4 | -0.1 | ||||
| Bloc Québécois | Anna Simonyan | 11,112 | 22.0 | +0.3 | ||||
| New Democratic | Ghada Chaabi | 5,844 | 11.6 | +0.2 | ||||
| Conservative | Steven Duarte | 4,247 | 8.4 | +1.1 | ||||
| Green | Luc Joli-Coeur | 1,491 | 3.0 | -3.1 | ||||
| People's | Manon Chevalier | 1,313 | 2.6 | +1.5 | ||||
| Total valid votes | 50,409 | 98.0 | ||||||
| Total rejected ballots | 1,054 | 2.0 | ||||||
| Turnout | 51,463 | 64.2 | ||||||
| Eligible voters | 80,206 | |||||||
| Liberal hold | Swing | -0.2 | ||||||
| Source: Elections Canada | ||||||||
| 2019 Canadian federal election: Ahuntsic-Cartierville | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | Expenditures | |||
| Liberal | Mélanie Joly | 28,904 | 52.45 | +5.65 | $75,399.95 | |||
| Bloc Québécois | André Parizeau | 11,974 | 21.73 | +8.53 | ||||
| New Democratic | Zahia El-Masri | 6,284 | 11.4 | -18.6 | ||||
| Conservative | Kathy Laframboise | 4,013 | 7.28 | -0.02 | $0.00 | |||
| Green | Jean-Michel Lavarenne | 3,352 | 6.08 | +3.98 | $7,837.28 | |||
| People's | Raymond Ayas | 584 | 1.06 | $7,512.42 | ||||
| Total valid votes/expense limit | 55,111 | 100.0 | ||||||
| Total rejected ballots | 1,022 | |||||||
| Turnout | 56,133 | 67.5 | ||||||
| Eligible voters | 83,176 | |||||||
| Liberal hold | Swing | -1.44 | ||||||
| Source: Elections Canada | ||||||||
| 2015 Canadian federal election | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | Expenditures | |||
| Liberal | Mélanie Joly | 26,026 | 46.8 | +15.7 | $149,387.67 | |||
| New Democratic | Maria Mourani | 16,684 | 30.0 | +0.1 | $86,722.49 | |||
| Bloc Québécois | Nicolas Bourdon | 7,346 | 13.2 | -15.1 | $27,931.96 | |||
| Conservative | Wiliam Moughrabi | 4,051 | 7.3 | -1.3 | $12,346.58 | |||
| Green | Gilles Mercier | 1,175 | 2.1 | +0.7 | – | |||
| Rhinoceros | Catherine Gascon-David | 285 | 0.5 | – | – | |||
| Total valid votes/Expense limit | – | 100.0 | $220,041.13 | |||||
| Total rejected ballots | – | – | – | |||||
| Turnout | – | – | – | |||||
| Eligible voters | 82,863 | |||||||
| Source: Elections Canada | ||||||||
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 (Changing the Rules of the Game). 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.
- 2012–2013 — CHUM Foundation, member of the board of directors
- 2011–2013 — Quebec Pension Plan, member of the board of directors
- 2011 — Sortie 13, member of the think tank group
- 2011–2013 — Entrepreneur organization (EO), member of forum 8
- 2011–2012 — Governor General Award of Performing Arts, member of the national organizing committee
- 2010–2013 — Canadian Circle, member of the board of directors
- 2009–2012 — Laval Symphony Orchestra, member of the board of directors and founding president of future committee
- 2009–2011 — Young Canadians in Finance (Business women's division), founding member of the committee
- 2009–2010 — Montreal Bach Festival, member of the board of directors
- 2008–2013 — Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, member of the board of directors and president of the governance committee
- 2008–2013 — Conseil supérieur de la langue française, member of the board of directors
- 2007–2011 — Génération d’idées, cofounder and member of the board of directors
- 2007–2011 — Ballets Jazz de Montréal, member of the Honouring Committee
- 2007–2008 — Montreal Contemporary Art Museum, founding president of the Youth Committee and initiated the MCAM Spring Project
- 2006–2007 — Montreal Contemporary Art Museum, member of the board of directors and founding president of the youth committee
- 2006–2008 — Advisory Board of the dean of the Faculty of law at l’Université de Montréal, member of the board of directors