Edward William "Eddie" Ewasiuk (September 24, 1933 – April 14, 2006) was a labour activist, a city councilor in

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city anc ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

and a

NDP NDP may stand for: Computing * Neighbor Discovery Protocol, an Internet protocol * Nortel Discovery Protocol, a layer two Internet protocol, also called SONMP * Nondeterministic programming, a type of computer language Government * National Dev ...

Member of the Legislative Assembly in the

Legislative Assembly of Alberta The Legislative Assembly of Alberta is the deliberative assembly of the province of Alberta, Canada. It sits in the Alberta Legislature Building in Edmonton. The Legislative Assembly currently has 87 members, elected first past the post from sing ...

. He was born in

Vegreville Vegreville ( uk, Веґревіль) is a town in central Alberta, Canada. It is on Highway 16A approximately east of Edmonton, Alberta's capital city. It was incorporated as a town in 1906, and that year also saw the founding of the ''Vegrev ...

, Alberta.

Early life

Ed W. Ewasiuk was born on September 24, 1933 in Vegreville, Alberta. He was born to parents of Ukrainian descent. Ewasiuk was a labour activist with what was the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union. He served as a president of his local and then as a national vice-president. In 1980, he ran for city council in Edmonton's Northeast Ward 3 as part of the now-defunct

Edmonton Voters' Association Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city anch ...

municipal party. and won, and was re-elected in 1983.

Provincial politics

In the

1986 Alberta general election The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 **Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal enter ...

, Ewasiuk stood for MLA as a

New Democrat New Democrats, also known as centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats, or moderate Democrats, are a centrist ideological faction within the Democratic Party in the United States. As the Third Way faction of the party, they are seen as cultural ...

in the northeast riding of

Edmonton-Beverly Edmonton-Beverly was a provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada, mandated to return a single member to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta using the first past the post method of voting from 1971 to 1993. History The Edmonton-Beverly ...

. He won easily, garnering almost 60% of the vote, in an NDP sweep of Edmonton under Ray Martin's leadership. He defeated powerful PC Cabinet minister

Bill Diachuk Bill Wasyl Diachuk (October 8, 1929 – October 17, 2014) was a municipal and provincial politician from Alberta, Canada. He began his political career in Edmonton municipal politics serving two separate stints as a separate school trustee. The ...

. In City Hall and Legislature, Ewasiuk gained a reputation as a devout advocate of workers' rights and reducing

poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse < ...

. In the

1989 Alberta general election The 1989 Alberta general election was held on March 20, 1989, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. Many political observers were surprised by the early election call as less than three years had passed since the previous ele ...

, Ewasiuk was re-elected with 50% of the vote. He was defeated in the

1993 Alberta general election The 1993 Alberta general election was held on June 15, 1993, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. The Conservative government was re-elected, taking 51 seats out of 83 (61 percent of the seats) but only having support of 45 per ...

Julius Yankowsky Julius Edward Yankowsky (born August 8, 1938) is a former politician from Alberta, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1993 to 2004. Political career Yankowsky first ran for the Alberta Legislature in the 1993 general ...

in the new electoral district of

Edmonton-Beverly-Belmont Edmonton-Beverly-Belmont was a provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada, mandated to return a single member to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta using the first past the post method of voting from 1993 to 1997. History The Edmonton-B ...

after his old electoral district of Edmonton-Beverly was redistributed.

Late life and legacy

Ewasiuk died suddenly at his home in Edmonton in 2006. In 2007, a memorial bench for Ewasiuk was unveiled by the NDP and the

CEP ''Boletus edulis'' (English: cep, penny bun, porcino or porcini) is a basidiomycete fungus, and the type species of the genus ''Boletus''. Widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere across Europe, Asia, and North America, it does not occu ...

union facing

Edmonton City Hall The Edmonton City Hall is the home of the municipal government of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Designed by Dub Architects, the building was completed in 1992. It was built to replace the former city hall designed by architects Kelvin Crawford Stanl ...

References

External links

Legislative Assembly of Alberta Members Listing
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ewasiuk, Ed 1933 births 2006 deaths Alberta New Democratic Party MLAs Canadian people of Ukrainian descent Canadian socialists of Ukrainian descent Canadian socialists Canadian trade unionists Edmonton city councillors People from Vegreville