Career
In 2005, she defeated incumbent New Democratic Party Member of Parliament Bev Desjarlais for the NDP nomination due, in part, to the same-sex marriage issue after Desjarlais broke party ranks to vote against the Civil Marriage Act. Desjarlais subsequently quit the party and sat as an independent for the remainder of her term; she ran against Ashton as an independent candidate in the election in the Churchill riding in the 2006 Canadian federal election. Ashton's major themes in her campaign included getting federal funding for the University College of the North, as well as getting a federal government northern development agreement.
Although the labour unions in Thompson endorsed Ashton, the NDP vote nevertheless split between Ashton and Desjarlais, and the riding was won by Liberal Party candidate Tina Keeper.
Ashton defeated Keeper in the 2008 election to regain the riding for the NDP.
In 2011 Ashton received the support of American documentary film maker Michael Moore in her fight to prevent the closing of Brazilian mining company Vale's smelter and refinery in Thompson, Manitoba. Vale, which owned the refinery after it took over Canadian company Inco, had earlier received a $1 billion unsecured loan from the Harper Government, and under the Investment Canada Act signed a contractual agreement with the federal government. A media investigation found that Vale broke this agreement, but as of May 2011 the government has yet to file punitive action against Vale.
On November 7, 2011, in Montreal, Niki Ashton launched her campaign as the ninth person to join the NDP leadership race. She placed seventh with 5.7% of the vote at the March 24, 2012 leadership election and was eliminated on the first ballot.
Ashton said that a retreat for the NDP party is a chance for the party to regroup and plan its agenda for the fall, including a focus on issues such as environmental regulations and fighting a private members' bill dealing with abortion.
Read more about this topic: Niki Ashton
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman’s natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.”
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“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
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“My ambition in life: to become successful enough to resume my career as a neurasthenic.”
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