France Gélinas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
France Gélinas
MPP for Nickel Belt
Incumbent
Assumed office
October 30, 2007
Preceded by Shelley Martel
Personal details
Political party New Democratic Party
Residence Sudbury, Ontario
Profession Physiotherapist, health care administrator
Religion Roman Catholic

France Gélinas is a Canadian politician, who was elected to represent the riding of Nickel Belt in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in the 2007 Ontario election. She is a member of the Ontario New Democratic Party.

Background

Gélinas, a Franco-Ontarian, is trained as a physiotherapist. She has been the executive director of the Community Health Centre of Sudbury, is on the United Way's Citizens' Advisory Panel, and serves as president of the Francophone Reference Group of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. She lives in the Naughton neighbourhood of Sudbury with her family.[1]

Politics

She is the party's critic for Health and Long-Term Care, and Francophone affairs in the NDP's shadow cabinet. In May 2008, she joined caucus colleagues Michael Prue and Peter Tabuns in calling on the provincial government to crack down on private hydroelectricity marketers.[2]

She has been an outspoken critic of competitive bidding in the province's home care services,[3] and of layoffs affecting nurses in the province's hospitals.[4]

Following the announcement of Howard Hampton's retirement as leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party, there was some speculation in Sudbury's local media that Gélinas might join the leadership campaign. However, she indicated on June 16, 2008 that as a relatively new MPP, she did not feel that she was ready to become a leadership candidate.[5] She later endorsed Gilles Bisson for the leadership, and supported the eventual winner, Andrea Horwath, on the final ballot at the convention.

In 2009, Gélinas introduced the Healthy Decisions for Healthy Eating bill, a private member's bill which would mandate the provision of nutritional and calorie information on restaurant menus.[6] In 2011, she introduced a private member's bill to have the provincial Commissioner of French Language Services report to the full Legislative Assembly of Ontario, rather than exclusively to the Minister of Francophone Affairs.[7]

Electoral record

Ontario general election, 2007
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
New DemocraticFrance Gélinas 15,126 46.6 0.08
LiberalRon Dupuis 12,341 38.0 -0.64
Progressive ConservativeRenée Germain 3,264 10.1 -3.39
GreenFred Twilley 1,368 4.2 2.85
Family CoalitionRichard St-Denis 341 1.1

References

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.