Karina Gould

Running as the incumbent in the 2019 Canadian federal election, Gould was re-elected as the Member of Parliament representing the Burlington, Ontario riding. Gould's hometown support proved to only be growing as her 2019 results surpassed that of 2015, winning 48.6% of the vote to Conservative Jane Michael's 33.2% Winning just 157 seats as opposed to the 177 held prior, Gould's growing support in this key Southern Ontario riding enabled her party to obtain a minority government in the 2019 Canadian federal election.

Gould has been outspoken about the obstacles facing women in politics, stating in a 2019 interview, "In 2015, I'd say the No. 1 thing people asked me at the door was how old I was and why I thought I could jump into politics at such a young age... And I know, for a fact, that they wouldn't ask a man of the age those questions."

It came to light on 18 May that Gould, as the Minister for International Development (MID) in the second Trudeau ministry, was formally in charge of the Canadian government's sponsorship of the World Health Organization (WHO). As MID she is entrusted the discussions with DGWHO Tedros Adhanom. She had a "good and frank conversation" with him via electronic means the week before the 73rd World Health Assembly.

Gould married her husband, Alberto Gerones, in 2011. She gave birth to her first child Oliver on March 8, 2018, making her the first sitting federal cabinet minister to give birth while in office. Her breastfeeding her then three-month-old son during question period in the House of Commons attracted media attention during June 2018.

On January 10, 2017, she was named Minister of Democratic Institutions, succeeding Maryam Monsef. She also became the President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada. These appointments made her the youngest female cabinet minister in Canadian history.

She subsequently completed a master's degree in international relations at Oxford University. Upon completion of her graduate studies at Oxford, Gould decided to move back to her hometown of Burlington, Ontario. She took a job working as a Trade and Investment Specialist for the Mexican Trade Commission "ProMexico" in Toronto. Gould held this position for less than a year before announcing her candidacy in the 2015 election at the age of twenty-eight.

On December 2, 2015, Gould was named the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of International Development and La Francophonie within the Liberal government. During her time in this role she chaired a foreign-aid strategy session at the Health Systems Research Conference in Vancouver (2016) where stated that it was important to empower women and girls within a feminist approach to foreign-aid. During Barack Obama's July 2016 state visit to Ottawa, he gave a shoutout to Burlington, where his brother in law lives, during his address to Parliament, prompting Gould to wave for the cameras, in what Macleans called her most high-profile moment.

Despite electoral reforms being a pledged mandate of Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau's 2015 campaign, with this appointment such electoral reforms were no longer part of the Minister of Democratic Institutions mandate. Instead, Gould's mandate included commitments to strengthen Canada's democratic institutions and improve Canada's democratic process by addressing and cyber threats like online meddling and the spread of disinformation from social media giants and combating foreign interference. Gould has been credited as being instrumental in not both passing and defending Bill C-76 or Elections Modernization Act, which made significant amendments to the Canadian Elections Act, including numerous accommodations for voter accessibility, restrictions on third-party interference on election campaigns, and a prohibition on spending by foreign entities during elections.

During the election campaign, she attracted minor attention for deleting a three-year-old tweet expressing opposition to the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines – eventually not approved by the Trudeau government – and to the development of the Alberta tar sands in general. She defeated Conservative incumbent Mike Wallace, who had represented the riding since the 2006 federal election, by winning 46% of the vote to his 42.5%.

In 2010, Gould took a job with the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C., working as a consultant in the Migration and Development Program. She is cited as contributing to the 2011 report, International Migration in the Americas: First Report of the Continuous Reporting System on International Migration in the Americas (SICREMI).

Upon her return to Canada in 2006, Gould attended McGill University, earning a joint honours degree in political science as well as Latin American and Caribbean studies. Writing her honours thesis on the Canadian Electoral System, she graduated first class honours with distinction in 2010. During her time as an undergraduate student she served as President of the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) and helped organize fundraising for humanitarian aid for Haiti in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake.

Karina Gould PC MP (born June 28, 1987) is a Canadian Liberal politician who was elected as a member of parliament in the House of Commons of Canada to represent the federal electoral district Burlington during the 2015 and 2019 federal elections. On January 10, 2017, she was appointed Minister of Democratic Institutions in the 29th Canadian Ministry, headed by Justin Trudeau, becoming the youngest female cabinet minister in Canadian history.

Gould was born in 1987, and grew up in Burlington, Ontario in a family with three brothers. At sixteen, she participated in the Forum for Young Canadians, spending a week in Ottawa learning about the federal government, which she credits as the impetus for her goal of a career in Parliament. After she graduated from M.M. Robinson High School in 2005, she spent the next year volunteering at an orphanage in Mexico, where she met her husband, Alberto Gerones.