Raymonde Folco

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Raymonde Folco (née Goldgrav) (born March 16, 1940) is a Canadian politician.

Born in a Jewish family in Paris, she hid with Christian families during World War II. She emigrated to Toronto with her family in 1950s. She received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne, a Bachelor of Arts in linguistics from the Université du Québec à Montréal, and Master of Arts in applied linguistics from Concordia University.

Folco's political career began in the Quebec arena, where she was vice-president in 1988 and then, from 1990 to 1995, president of the Conseil des communautés culturelles et de l'immigration, a Quebec agency whose role is to advise the government on matters relating to immigration and integration of ethnic minorities. While holding that position, she was recruited to the Liberal Party and ran for the Canadian House of Commons as a Liberal candidate for the Quebec riding of Laval East in 1993, losing to the Bloc Québécois candidate, Maud Debien.

However, Folco was elected in 1997 and 2000 for the riding of Laval West, and reelected in 2004 and 2006 for the newly-formed riding of Laval—Les Îles. From 2000 to 2003, she served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources Development.

Having begun her pre-political career as a lecturer in Jamaica and in Australia, as a politician Folco has served on a number of diplomatic or quasi-diplomatic foreign missions, including the Central African Republic; East Timor; Republic of Congo; Haiti; Ivory Coast; and Chiapas, Mexico. Up until May, 2006, Folco was vice president of Liberal International.