Mélanie Joly (born January 16, 1979) is a Canadian lawyer and politician who has served as

Minister of Foreign Affairs A foreign affairs minister or minister of foreign affairs (less commonly minister for foreign affairs) is generally a cabinet minister in charge of a state's foreign policy and relations. The formal title of the top official varies between co ...

since October 2021. A member of the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

, Joly represents the

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

-area riding of

Ahuntsic-Cartierville Ahuntsic-Cartierville ( (local accent)) is a borough (''arrondissement'') of the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The borough was created following the 2002 municipal reorganization of Montreal. It comprises two main neighbourhoods, Ahuntsi ...

in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

, taking office as a

member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

(MP) following the 2015 federal election. She has held a number of portfolios including

Canadian heritage The Department of Canadian Heritage, or simply Canadian Heritage (french: Patrimoine canadien), is the department of the Government of Canada that has roles and responsibilities related to initiatives that promote and support "Canadian identity ...

, tourism, and

La Francophonie LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figur ...

. Joly ran for mayor of Montreal in the

2013 Montreal municipal election Municipal elections were held in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada on November 3, 2013 as part of the 2013 Quebec municipal elections. Voters elected 65 positions on the Montreal City Council, including the mayor, borough mayors, and city ...

, placing second behind eventual winner

Denis Coderre Denis Coderre (born July 25, 1963) is a Canadian politician from Quebec. Coderre was the member of Parliament for the riding of Bourassa from 1997 until 2013, and was the Immigration minister from 2002 to 2003 and became the mayor of Mont ...

. Born in

Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-pe ...

, Joly graduated from

Université de Montréal The Université de Montréal (UdeM; ; translates to University of Montreal) is a French-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university's main campus is located in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood of Côte- ...

and

Brasenose College, Oxford Brasenose College (BNC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It began as Brasenose Hall in the 13th century, before being founded as a college in 1509. The library and chapel were added in the m ...

Early and personal life

Born on January 16, 1979, she grew up in Montreal's northern neighbourhood of

Ahuntsic Ahuntsic (; French pronunciation ) is a district in the northern part of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Originally an independent village, Ahuntsic was first annexed by Montreal in 1910, then merged into the borough of Ahuntsic-Cartierville in 200 ...

. 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 The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA; french: Administration canadienne de la sûreté du transport aérien) is the Canadian Crown Corporation responsible for security screening of people and baggage and the administration of id ...

from 2002 to 2007. Her stepmother,

Carole-Marie Allard Carole-Marie Allard (born September 6, 1949) is a former Canadian politician who served as a Liberal member of Canada's House of Commons. She represented the riding of Laval East from 2000 to 2004. She was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minist ...

, is a lawyer and journalist, who was an MP representing Laval—East from 2000 to 2004.

Education and career

After completing her degree in

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

at the

in 2001, Joly became a member of the

Barreau du Québec The Bar of Quebec (french: Barreau du Québec) is the regulatory body for the practice of advocates in the Canadian province of Quebec and one of two legal regulatory bodies in the province. It was founded on May 30, 1849, as the Bar of Lower Ca ...

. She subsequently received the

Chevening scholarship The Chevening Scholarship is an international scholarship, funded by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, that lets foreign students with leadership qualities study at universities in the United Kingdom. History The Chevening Scholarship ...

and continued her studies at

, where she received a ''

Magister Juris MJur (Magister Juris or Master of Jurisprudence; common abbreviations include MJur, M.Jur., Mag. Jur. and Mag. iur.) is an academic degree in law awarded by some universities. Magister Juris at the University of Oxford The Magister Juris (MJur) ...

'' in comparative and public law in 2003. Joly also interned at Radio-Canada, in 2007. At the beginning of her career, Joly practiced law at two major Montreal law firms,

Stikeman Elliott Stikeman Elliott LLP is a Canadian business law firm founded in 1952 by H. Heward Stikeman and Fraser Elliott. The firm has offices located in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Vancouver, New York, London and Sydney. Since 2021, the firm's ch ...

and

Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP is an integrated firm of more than two hundred and forty lawyers, with offices in Toronto, Montreal, and New York City. Davies focuses on business law, including commercial and financial matters. The firm acts ...

. At the latter firm, her mentor was former Parti Quebecois premier

Lucien Bouchard Lucien Bouchard (; born December 22, 1938) is a Canadian lawyer, diplomat and retired politician. Minister for two years in the Mulroney cabinet, Bouchard then led the emerging Bloc Québécois and became Leader of the Opposition in the Ho ...

, 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 2010, she became the first Quebecer to receive the Arnold Edinborough award, which recognizes philanthropic involvement within the Canadian cultural community. In 2013, she was appointed to head the Quebec Advisory Committee for

Justin Trudeau Justin Pierre James Trudeau ( , ; born December 25, 1971) is a Canadian politician who is the 23rd and current prime minister of Canada. He has served as the prime minister of Canada since 2015 and as the leader of the Liberal Party since ...

’s leadership campaign of the

Liberal Party of Canada The Liberal Party of Canada (french: Parti libéral du Canada, region=CA) is a federal political party in Canada. The party espouses the principles of liberalism,McCall, Christina; Stephen Clarkson"Liberal Party". ''The Canadian Encyclopedia' ...

. 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, for which she wrote "Les villes au pouvoir ou comment relancer le monde municipal québécois".

Political career

Municipal campaign

In June 2013, Joly announced her candidacy for

mayor of Montreal The mayor of Montreal is head of the executive branch of the Montreal City Council. The current mayor is Valérie Plante, who was elected into office on November 5, 2017, and sworn in on November 16. The office of the mayor administers all ci ...

in the

elections An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...

which occurred in the same year. She founded a new party,

Vrai changement pour Montréal Vrai changement pour Montréal ( en, Real Change for Montreal) was a municipal political party in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The party's leader was Justine McIntyre. Origins and 2013 campaign Vrai changement was founded by Mélanie Joly in Septem ...

, to support her candidacy. On November 3, election day, she obtained 26.50 per cent of the votes, finishing six points behind the winner, Denis Coderre. However, she finished ahead of several more established challengers.

Federal politics

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 per cent of the vote, unseating incumbent

Maria Mourani Maria Mourani (born May 19, 1969) is a Canadian politician who was elected as a Member of Parliament in the federal riding of Ahuntsic in Canada. She was formerly a member of the Bloc Québécois before leaving the party over its support for th ...

In Cabinet

After the election, Joly was named as the minister of Canadian heritage as part of Prime Minister

's new government. On August 28, 2018, Joly was demoted 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. The first reform since 1988, Joly'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.

Minister of Foreign Affairs

Joly took office as Canada's

on October 26, 2021. On December 20, 2021, Joly announced that she had tested positive for

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quick ...

. Amidst global concerns about a buildup of Russian troops on the country's eastern border, she visited

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...

in January 2022. She visited again on May 8, 2022 when she accompanied Trudeau on an unannounced visit to Kyiv to reopen the Canadian embassy amidst the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...

. In May 2022, Turkish President

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician serving as the 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as prime minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to ...

voiced his opposition to

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

and

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bot ...

joining

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two N ...

, accusing the two countries of tolerating groups which

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...

classifies as terrorist organizations, including the Kurdish militant groups

PKK The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of sout ...

and YPG and the supporters of

Fethullah Gülen Muhammed Fethullah Gülen (born 27 April 1941) is a Turkish Islamic scholar, preacher, and a one-time opinion leader, as de facto leader of the Gülen movement. Gülen is designated an influential neo-Ottomanist, Anatolian panethnicist, Isl ...

, a US-based Muslim cleric accused by Turkey of orchestrating a failed

2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt On 15 July 2016, a faction within the Turkish Armed Forces, organized as the Peace at Home Council, attempted a coup d'état against state institutions, including the government and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. They attempted to seize cont ...

. Joly held talks with Turkey to convince the Turkish government of the need for two Nordic nations integration.

Electoral record

References

External links

*
Le vrai changement pour Montréal - groupe Mélanie Joly (official website)Biography & mandate latter from the Prime Minister
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Joly, Melanie Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Quebec Liberal Party of Canada MPs Women members of the House of Commons of Canada Canadian women in municipal politics Female Canadian political party leaders Lawyers from Montreal People from Ahuntsic-Cartierville French Quebecers Living people Université de Montréal alumni Alumni of Brasenose College, Oxford Politicians from Montreal Canadian women lawyers Women in Quebec politics 1979 births Members of the King's Privy Council for Canada Members of the 29th Canadian Ministry Women government ministers of Canada 21st-century Canadian women politicians Chevening Scholars