Leah Gazan MP
Gazan in 2019
Member of Parliament forWinnipeg Centre
Incumbent
Assumed office October 21, 2019
Preceded by	Robert-Falcon Ouellette
Personal details
Born	(1972-04-08)April 8, 1972 (age 53)[1] Thompson, Manitoba, Canada[2]
Party	New Democratic Party
Residence(s)	Winnipeg,Manitoba, Canada[3]
Alma mater	University of Winnipeg (BEd) Central Michigan University (MA)[4]

Leah GazanMP (born April 8, 1972) is aCanadian politician. A member of theNew Democratic Party (NDP), she was first elected to theHouse of Commons of Canada in the2019 Canadian federal election, serving as themember of Parliament (MP) forWinnipeg Centre.^[5]

Leah Gazan was born inThompson,Manitoba^[2] to Abraham (Albert) Gazan^[6] and Marjorie Anne Lecaine.^[7] According to Gazan, both her parents are survivors: her maternal grandmother, Adeline LeCaine, isLakota, and her maternal grandfather is Chinese,^[8] while her paternal grandparents areJewish.^[9] Gazan's father, born atThe Hague,South Holland in 1938, was two and a half years old when the Germans invaded Holland, and spent the remainder of the war in hiding, sheltered by Dutch families.^[10] Gazan's paternal grandmother, Gina Gazan, spent time in a concentration camp.^[11]

Both of Gazan's parents were organizers for theCo-operative Commonwealth Federation, the NDP's predecessor party.^[12]

Before her first political campaign, Gazan was a lecturer at the Faculty of Education inUniversity of Winnipeg.^[13][14][15] She also served as president for the Social Planning council of Winnipeg. Gazan participated inIdle No More, and pushed for Bill C-262 to be passed by the House of Commons.^[16] She also represented the province of Manitoba for theUnited Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues advocating for acknowledgement of injustice perpetuated againstIndigenous Canadian adoptive children.^[17]

Gazan identifies as asocialist, like her parents.^[12][18] In 2019, Gazan won theNDP nomination forWinnipeg Centre over former ManitobaAttorney GeneralAndrew Swan.^[19] She subsequently defeated incumbentLiberalRobert-Falcon Ouellette for the seat ofWinnipeg Centre, retaking the riding for theNDP.^[20]

During the43rd Canadian Parliament, NDP leaderJagmeet Singh appointed Gazan to be the Critic for Families, Children, and Social Development in theNDP's shadow Cabinet. She introduced oneprivate member's bill, Bill C-323,An Act respecting a Climate Emergency Action Framework, which sought to require the Minister of the Environment to develop and implement a framework on achieving the objectives of theUnited Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. At a vote on March 24, 2021, it was defeated with Liberal andConservative Party MPs voting against.^[21][22]

In August 2020, Gazan introduced Motion 46 in theHouse of Commons of Canada, which would convert theCanada Emergency Response Benefit introduced by the federal government during theCOVID-19 pandemic into a permanentbasic income program.^[23] In 2021 she spoke in the House of Commons in support of UBI.^[24]

She presented a motion to the House of Commons to declare the deaths and disappearances of Indigenous women and girls a Canada-wide emergency, which passed unanimously. The motion also called for the creation of a new system to send out alerts for missing people.^[25]

• Leah Gazan – Parliament of Canada biography

• Canadian people of Chinese descent
• Canadian people of Dutch-Jewish descent
• Living people
• First Nations politicians
• New Democratic Party MPs
• Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Manitoba
• People from Thompson, Manitoba
• Politicians from Winnipeg
• Women members of the House of Commons of Canada
• Indigenous Members of the House of Commons of Canada
• Lakota women
• 21st-century Canadian women politicians
• Canadian socialists
• 1972 births
• 21st-century members of the House of Commons of Canada

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