- Steve Ashton
Steve Ashton (born
February 29 ,1956 in Surrey,England ) is a politician inManitoba ,Canada . He is a long-serving member of theManitoba legislature , and is currently acabinet minister in the New Democratic Party government ofGary Doer .Ashton moved with his family to Thompson, in northern Manitoba, at age eleven. He was educated at
R.D. Parker Collegiate in that community, theUniversity of Manitoba in Winnipeg andLakehead University in Thunder Bay,Ontario . He was President of the University of Manitoba Students Union in 1978-79 and has lectured in Economics for the former Inter Universities North in Thompson and Cross Lake.Ashton was first elected to the Manitoba legislature in the 1981 provincial election, defeating Progressive Conservative incumbent
Ken MacMaster by 72 votes in theconstituency of Thompson. At the time of his first election, Ashton was involved in an INCO strike in the Thompson area as a member of theUnited Steelworkers of America . He was re-elected in the 1986 election by a greater margin. Ashton did not serve in the cabinet ofHoward Pawley .The NDP were defeated in the provincial election of 1988, although Ashton won his own riding by a comfortable margin. He would later serve as House Leader for the NDP in opposition, and was easily re-elected in the provincial elections of 1990, 1995 and 1999. In 1995, he supported
Lorne Nystrom 's bid to lead the federalNew Democratic Party .When NDP leader
Gary Doer becamePremier in October 1999, Ashton was appointed Minister of Highways and Government Services. OnJuly 4 ,2000 , he was charged with administration of the Gaming Control Act; his ministry was renamed as Transportation and Government Services onJanuary 17 ,2001 . Following a cabinet shuffle onSeptember 25 ,2002 , Ashton became Minister of Conservation (in which capacity he argued for national approval of theKyoto Accord on climate change). OnJune 25 ,2003 , he was also made Minister of Labour and Immigration with responsibility for Multiculturalism and administration of the Worker's Compensation Act.In 2003, Ashton supported
Bill Blaikie 's campaign to become leader of the federal NDP.Ashton was re-elected in the 2003 election with over 82% of the vote in his constituency. On
November 4 ,2003 , he was named as the province's first Minister of Water Stewardship (created after highly-publicized water contamination tragedies in Walkerton,Ontario and North Battleford,Saskatchewan ).Ashton is also Secretary of the
Canadian Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles , seeking the return of the treasured sculptures from Britain toGreece . He speaks Greek, and has written on the political culture of that nation.His daughter,
Niki Ashton , is a member of the federal New Democratic Party and ran for the Churchill riding in the 2006 Federal Election, finishing second.Ashton was re-elected in the 2007 provincial election.
External links
* [http://www.steveashton.ca/ Official Website]
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