| Jenny Kwan | |||||||||
| Native Name Lang: | zh-Hant-HK | ||||||||
| Parliament: | Canadian | ||||||||
| Term Start: | October 19, 2015 | ||||||||
| Predecessor: | Libby Davies | ||||||||
| Riding: | Vancouver East | ||||||||
| Assembly1: | British Columbia Legislative | ||||||||
| Constituency Am1: | Vancouver-Mount Pleasant | ||||||||
| Term Start1: | May 28, 1996 | ||||||||
| Term End1: | August 4, 2015 | ||||||||
| Predecessor1: | Mike Harcourt | ||||||||
| Successor1: | Melanie Mark | ||||||||
| Office2: | British Columbia Minister of Community Development, Cooperatives and Volunteers | ||||||||
| Premier2: | Ujjal Dosanjh | ||||||||
| Term Start2: | February 29, 2000 | ||||||||
| Term End2: | June 5, 2001 | ||||||||
| Predecessor2: | Jan Pullinger | ||||||||
| Successor2: | George Abbott | ||||||||
| Office3: | British Columbia Minister of Women's Equality | ||||||||
| Premier3: | Glen Clark Dan Miller | ||||||||
| Term Start3: | July 21, 1999 | ||||||||
| Term End3: | February 24, 2000 | ||||||||
| Predecessor3: | Penny Priddy | ||||||||
| Successor3: | Evelyn Gillespie | ||||||||
| Office4: | British Columbia Minister of Municipal Affairs | ||||||||
| Premier4: | Glen Clark | ||||||||
| Term Start4: | February 18, 1998 | ||||||||
| Term End4: | July 21, 1999 | ||||||||
| Predecessor4: | Michael Farnworth | ||||||||
| Successor4: | Jim Doyle | ||||||||
| Birth Place: | British Hong Kong | ||||||||
| Residence: | Vancouver[1] | ||||||||
| Party: | New Democratic | ||||||||
| Alma Mater: | Simon Fraser University (BA) | ||||||||
| Module: |
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Jenny Wai Ching Kwan (Chinese: t=關慧貞; born 1967) is a Canadian politician who is the member of Parliament (MP) for Vancouver East. A member of the New Democratic Party (NDP), Kwan was elected to the House of Commons in 2015.
She was previously a member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), representing Vancouver-Mount Pleasant from 1996 to 2015 with the British Columbia (BC) NDP, and was a provincial cabinet minister from 1998 to 2001. Kwan entered politics in 1993, when she was elected to the Vancouver City Council.
Kwan immigrated to Canada at age nine with her family from British Hong Kong. She speaks English, French, and Cantonese.
Kwan graduated from Simon Fraser University with a Bachelor of Arts in Criminology. She started her career as a community legal advocate in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside before entering politics.
In 1993, Kwan at age 26 was elected as the youngest-ever member of Vancouver City Council. She was the sole representative of the Coalition of Progressive Electors throughout her term on council.[2]
In the 1996 British Columbia general election, Kwan entered provincial politics. After being nominated, she was elected as the MLA for Vancouver-Mount Pleasant, in East Vancouver. She succeeded Premier Mike Harcourt, who at the time had just resigned over a series of serious fundraising scandals, including Bingogate.
In 2001, Kwan, along with Joy MacPhail, was one of only two NDP MLAs to survive the party's electoral collapse in the 2001 British Columbia general election due to a BC Liberal landslide upset.[3] [4] She was re-elected in 2005, 2009, and 2013.[5]
In December 2010, Kwan released a statement to the media criticizing NDP leader Carole James, and calling for an immediate leadership convention, after party candidates suffered defeat in the 2009 election.[6] [7] In response to Kwan's statement, James called an emergency caucus session to address opposition to her continued leadership.[8] [9] Before the caucus meeting was held, however, James announced her resignation as party leader.[10] [11] While Kwan was accused of self-interest, at the time she claimed to have no plans to run for the leadership of the party.[12]
In March 2014, an audit of the Portland Hotel Society showed that Kwan's ex-husband, Dan Small, had improperly expensed the cost of a family Disneyland trip to the society.[13] [14] At the time of the trip, Kwan had still been married to Small and had participated in the trip with their children.[15] When the audit became public, Kwan held a press conference where she denied any knowledge that the society had paid for the trip, and said she would reimburse the society.[16] Following the conference, Kwan took a brief leave of absence.[17]
In January 2015, Kwan announced her plan to seek the NDP nomination in Vancouver East for the forthcoming federal election.[18] Mable Elmore, Kwan's legislative colleague from Vancouver-Kensington, was also seeking the party's nomination in the riding.[19] Kwan was nominated on March 22, and sought to succeed Libby Davies as the MP for the riding; Davies had served as its NDP MP since 1997,[20] [21] and the riding had voted for the NDP or its predecessor, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, in all but two elections since it was first contested in 1935.
She was elected to the House of Commons in October 2015, defeating candidates Edward Wong (Liberal) and James Low (Conservative) by wide margins.[22] On November 12, NDP leader Tom Mulcair appointed her to be the party's critic for immigration, refugees and citizenship.[23] She was re-elected in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections. On May 12, 2023, it was reported that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service approached Kwan about a meeting concerning Chinese diplomats threatening her.[24] [25]