Michelle Mungall

Michelle Mungall MLA
File:Mungall speaking at Rally April 2016.jpg Mungall speaking at Rally April 2016
MLA for Nelson-Creston
Incumbent
Assumed office 2009
Preceded by	Corky Evans
Personal details
Born	1978 St. Albert, Alberta
Political party	New Democrat
Spouse(s)	Zak Matieschyn
Residence	Nelson, British Columbia

Michelle Mungall is a Canadian politician, who was elected as a New Democratic Party Member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia in the 2009 provincial election, representing the riding of Nelson-Creston. She was born and raised in St. Albert, Alberta where she attended Paul Kane High School. She later graduated from University of Alberta in Edmonton and ran unsuccessfully for political office in the 2001 Alberta general election, in the St. Albert provincial electoral district.

She moved to Nelson, British Columbia in 2002 where she became a municipal councillor. She served one term before enrolling in Royal Roads University's Human Security and Peacebuilding program. She graduated with a Master of Arts degree after writing her thesis on homelessness in rural British Columbia. She decided to run for a seat in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia after the current member, Corky Evans, retired. She was successful over three other candidates for the New Democratic Party nomination, and won the Nelson-Creston riding with 54% of the vote.

Background

Michelle Mungall was born and raised in St. Albert, Alberta. She graduated from Paul Kane High School in 1996 and then attended the University of Alberta in Edmonton. She majored in political science and graduated with honours in 2001. At her university she organized a group named the Preservation of Education Accessibility for Society which sought to public funding for post-secondary education. She grew up in a household that debated politics, and in which her parents favoured the Progressive Conservative Party, but she became involved with the New Democratic Party during her first year of university. During her final year, she became the NDP candidate in the St. Albert riding during the 2001 Alberta general election. Mungall was not expected to win the race, which was expected to be close between the incumbent Progressive Conservative Mary O'Neill and the Liberal challenger Len Bracko. Also in 2001 she worked as a youth organizer for the Northern Alberta Alliance on Race Relations and was profiled in the Edmonton Journal as one of Alberta's 30 most-promising people under 30 years old.

Mungall re-located to Nelson, British Columbia, after visiting some friends there. She quickly integrated into the community and ran for city council in the November 2002 election. She was identified as a wildcard in the race, not expected to win because of her inexperience and being new to Nelson, but expected to do well from running a very strong campaign. Surprisingly, she finished third, gaining her one of the six council seats. At the age of 24, she was the youngest councillor in Nelson's history and was the youngest female municipal council member in Canada at the time. She was appointed to several committees, including the Youth Centre Committee, the Nelson Electric Tramway, and the Social Advocacy Committee, and task forces, including the Participatory Governance Task Force, Arts, Culture and Heritage Task Force, and the Solid Waste Management Task Force. As part of that Solid Waste Management Task Force, she helped introduce a blue box recycling program and privatized commercial garbage pick-up. She introduced an anti-war resolution, which the council adopted, matching similar resolutions adopted in several other BC municipalities. On local issues, she supported spending $4.4 million to purchase and move city hall to the White Building in a vote that split the council but was adopted on a tie-breaker vote. In another split vote which was ultimately adopted, Mungall supported directing $30,000 in 2005 towards arts and culture initiatives. She was on council during the 2004 ten week lock-out of municipal union workers as contract negotiations stalled over the issue of staffing levels. During most of the time she was on council, she also worked at the Nelson Food Coalition. She opted not to stand for re-election in the 2005 municipal election, citing a desire to further her education. After fulfilling an eight-month contract as a community developer with the Nelson Committee On Homelessness, she moved to Victoria to attend Royal Roads University's Human Security and Peacebuilding program. She traveled to Africa to spend seven months as an intern in Lusaka, Zambia working as a National Programmes Assistant for the World Young Women's Christian Association. She returned to Nelson in February 2007 and worked at the Nelson and District Youth Employment Resources Center for several months, followed by the nearly a year at a microfinace organization called the Circle of Habondia Lending Society. At the same time, she was writing her Master's thesis regarding homelessness in rural British Columbia. She submitted her dissertation in March 2009 and was awarded a Master of Arts degree by Royal Roads University. Mungall married Zak Matieschyn on July 23, 2011 in Kokanee Creek Provincial Park.

Provincial politics

In 2008, after Nelson-Creston Member of the Legislative Assembly Corky Evans announced he would not seek re-election in the next provincial election Mungall expressed interest in seeking the BC NDP nomination for that election. Three other women contested the nomination: fellow Nelson residents Kim Adamson and Bev LaPointe, as well as Creston small business owner Rhonda Barter. The nomination vote was held in February 2009. In the preferential vote Lapointe and Barter were eliminated in the first two rounds and in the third round Mungall narrowly defeated Adamson. Campaigning for the general began soon afterwards. She faced three other candidates, but only the BC Liberal candidate, long time rural director at the Regional District of Central Kootenay and former chair of the Columbia Basin Trust Josh Smienk was considered to be a serious challenger to Mungall. The other candidates, Sean Kubara of Kaslo running for the Green Party and David Duncan of the BC Conservative Party ran limited or no campaigns. Mungall campaign focused on issues surrounding the local economy, independent power producers, and health care. She took 54% of the vote in winning the riding, but her New Democratic Party lost provincially to the BC Liberals who formed a majority government.

39th Parliament

In the 39th Parliament, with the New Democrats as the Official Opposition, party leader Carole James assigned Mungall the role of deputy critic to Dawn Black on Advanced Education, where Moira Stilwell was the minister. As deputy critic, she spoke out against the June–July 2009 cuts to student aid programs and supported the student union of Selkirk College during a Halloween 2009 public event to highlight student loan problems. On local issues, Mungall used her MLA office to host a public meeting on the controversial Glacier-Howser hydroelectric project which was undergoing environmental assessment, which she would later oppose, she delivered a 3,000 signature petition to the legislature advocating for improvements to the Kootenay Lake Hospital and hired an intern from the University of British Columbia to research food security in the Kootenays. She was selected for the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services in the first and second sessions which engaged in budget consultations across the province, though she opposed the budget due to a lack of compromise on HST measures and the continuance of activity-based funding for health regions. She also spent time as chair of the NDP's Women's Caucus which monitored women's issues In December 2009-January 2010, she and her partner vacationed in Cambodia and while there, she participated (at the request of Mu Sochua) in training of local women who were preparing for an upcoming election and was interviewed by a radio call-in show. In the run up to the 2011 BC NDP leadership election Mungall supported Adrian Dix, who would eventually win the leadership post. As the third session of the 39th Parliament began, Dix appointed her critic for advanced education and for youth and was assigned to the Select Standing Committee on Education. At the same time, she criticized Premier Christy Clark's appointment of Don McRae as Minister of Agriculture, saying that the move was meant to "subvert" a recall campaign that was being waged against McRae in Comox Valley and noting that better qualified MLAs such as Ben Stewart and Steve Thomson were passed up. In November 2011, Mungall introduced her first piece of legislation, a private members bill entitled the Private Career Training Institutions Amendment Act (Bill M-208). The bill would have required more rigorous reporting and complaint resolution requirements in private educational institutes and brought English as a foreign or second language schools under the Private Career and Training Institutions Act.

Electoral history

B.C. General Election 2009: Nelson-Creston
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%	Expenditures
	NDP	Michelle Mungall	9,060	55%	n/a	$52,366
	Liberal	Josh Smienk	5,191	31%	n/a	$77,586
	Green	Sean Kubara	1,189	7%	n/a	$3,800
	Conservative	David Duncan	1,083	7%	n/a	$2,676
Total Valid Votes			16,523	100%
Total Rejected Ballots			98	0.6%
Turnout			16,621	60%

Alberta General Election 2001: St. Albert
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%	Expenditures
	Progressive Conservative	Mary O'Neill	9,537	53%	n/a	$79,601
	Alberta Liberal	Len Bracko	7,479	41%	n/a	$19,522
	NDP	Michelle Mungall	1,122	6%	n/a	$2,512
Total Valid Votes			18,138	100%
Total Rejected Ballots			63	0.3%
Turnout			18,201	64%

External links

• Legislative Assembly of British Columbia - Michelle Mungall
• Member of the Legislative Assembly - Michelle Mungall (Nelson-Creston)
• British Columbia New Democratic Party - Michelle Mungall