Leah Gazan has been the NDP Member of Parliament for Winnipeg Centre since 2019. She is the NDP Critic for Families, Children, and Social Development; Critic for Women and Gender Equality; and Critic for Post-Secondary Education. Gazan is a member of Wood Mountain Lakota Nation, located in Saskatchewan, Treaty 4 territory.
In 2021, Gazan introduced Bill C-223, the National Framework for a Guaranteed Livable Basic Income Act, which builds on a previous motion (M-46) she tabled to convert the Canada Emergency Response Benefit into a permanent GLBI. She previously introduced Bill C-232, the Climate Emergency Action Act, in 2019, which aimed to enshrine the right to a healthy environment as a human right.
In an historic first, the House of Commons gave unanimous consent to Gazan’s motion recognizing residential schools as an act of genocide in 2022, the first recognition of a genocide committed in Canada. In 2023, history was made again when she received unanimous consent for her motion to recognize the ongoing genocide of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit Individuals as a Canada-wide emergency. Both of these historic votes were the result of the tireless work of families, survivors, and advocates, supported by Gazan in Parliament.
Gazan has spent her life working for human rights on the local, national and international stage. As an educator, advisor, and media contributor, Gazan has been deeply engaged with issues and organizing in Winnipeg’s core for more than three decades. As president of the Social Planning Council between 2011- 2015, Gazan organized and pushed policy to end poverty, addressing violence against women and girls, finding solutions for housing insecurity and homelessness, advocating for fair wages, community-based actions addressing addictions, and supports for mental health. Gazan was a prominent Winnipeg lead during Idle No More, articulating the movement to the Winnipeg public. Gazan also co-founded the #WeCare campaign aimed at building public will to end violence against Indigenous women and girls.