- Source: Julie Dzerowicz
Juliana Roma "Julie" Dzerowicz () (born December 29, 1979) is a Canadian politician. A member of the Liberal Party, she has represented the Toronto riding of Davenport in the House of Commons of Canada since her initial election in 2015, and was reelected in 2019 and in 2021. She is a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and serves as one of its vice presidents.
Education
Dzerowicz graduated from McGill University with a bachelor of commerce in 1994. She completed her final term at Institut Commercial de Nancy in France. She was heavily involved in leadership roles at McGill, and served as the vice-president internal of the Students' Society of McGill University.
She received the Scarlet Key Award in 1994, which is awarded to "students who have demonstrated indubitable qualities of leadership, unselfishness and perseverance by their outstanding contributions to the McGill community."
After completing a master of business administration at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where she served on the UBC Senate, Dzerowicz finished her degree at the London Business School.
Career
= Pre-2015
=In 2007, Dzerowicz co-founded an environment charity called Project Neutral. She was also a founding board member of JUMP Math, a non-profit numeracy program.
Prior to her election, Dzerowicz worked as the director of strategic planning and communication at the Bank of Montreal, as a senior political staffer to former provincial cabinet minister Gerry Phillips, as the vice-chair of the Platform Committee for the Ontario Liberal Party and in biotechnology.
= As a Member of Parliament
=After a lengthy nomination process in 2015, Dzerowicz successfully secured the Liberal Party of Canada's nomination as the Liberal candidate in the riding of Davenport. In October 2015, she became the first female Member of Parliament for Davenport.
In 2017, Dzerowicz was mocked for a copy-paste post about LGBTQ solidarity where she forgot to add the name of her riding.
In February 2021, Dzerowicz introduced a private member's bill, Bill C-273, into the House of Commons of Canada calling upon the Minister of Finance to develop a national strategy for a guaranteed basic income.
In June 2021, Dzerowicz invited constituents to ask her questions via the Reddit discussion website. During the online conversation she was criticized for wrongly stating on Twitter that the 2020 Port of Montreal strike had lasted 2.5 years, and for another tweet in which The Hill Times stated she was mocking a constituent who asked about the Canadian government's legal fight with survivors of Canada's residential school system. Dzerowicz's calls for more funding for affordable housing and universal basic income were better received. Dzerowicz did not answer questions about the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission wholesale internet rates or the government's change of policy away from electoral reform.
Following the 2021 Canadian Federal Election, Dzerowicz was re-elected to represent Davenport. A recount was requested by NDP's Alejandra Bravo. Dzerowicz won by 76 votes.
In December 2021, Dzerowicz, acting as the chair of the Liberal Immigration caucus, responded to criticism from within her own party about delays to processing immigration claims, stating that work needs to be done and committing to future improvements.
In March 2024, Dzerowicz broke ranks with her party by calling for an arms embargo on Israel, citing calls from constituents and a February 23 statement from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, which warned that arms exports to Israel could violate international humanitarian law if used in Gaza. She stressed the need to protect innocent Palestinian civilians.
In June 2024, Dzerowicz’s office in Davenport was vandalized with red paint, and the words “Rafah is burning, Toronto will too” were spray-painted on the building.
Electoral record
References
External links
Official website
http://www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/Julie-Dzerowicz
Julie Dzerowicz – Parliament of Canada biography