Karina Gould

Karina Gould (born June 28, 1987) is a Canadian politician who has been the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons since July 26, 2023. A member of the Liberal Party, she has served as member of Parliament (MP) for the riding of Burlington in the House of Commons since October 19, 2015. Gould was first appointed to Cabinet on February 1, 2017 as the minister of democratic institutions, serving in the role until she was appointed as the minister of international development on November 20, 2019, and has since then served in two other portfolios. Gould is the youngest woman to serve as a Cabinet minister in Canadian history. Gould went on maternity leave in January 2024 and was temporarily replaced as House Leader by Steven MacKinnon, but is expected to return to the position at the end of July 2024.

Early life and career
Gould was born on June 28, 1987, growing up in Burlington, Ontario in a family with three brothers. Her paternal grandparents were Czech Jews who survived the Holocaust. Her mother is German and met her father while on a kibbutz in Israel. 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.

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 the president of the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) and helped organize fundraising for humanitarian aid for Haiti in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake.

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).

Gould subsequently completed a master's degree in international relations at St Hilda's College, Oxford. 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.

2015 Canadian federal election
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%.

Reflecting upon her first campaign in 2019 interview, Gould said: "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 same age those questions."

Parliamentary Secretary
Gould was named the parliamentary secretary to the minister of international development and La Francophonie on December 2, 2015. 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 United States President Barack Obama's July 2016 state visit to Ottawa, he gave a shout out to Burlington during his address to Parliament (where his brother-in-law Konrad Ng lives) prompting Gould to wave for the cameras, in what Maclean's called her most high-profile moment.

Minister of Democratic Institutions
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, taking office at the age of twenty-nine.

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.

2019 Canadian federal election
Running as the incumbent in the 2019 Canadian federal election, Gould was re-elected to her seat. 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.

Minister for International Development
Gould became the minister for international development, a key position in Trudeau's foreign policy. It came to light on May 18, 2020 that Gould was formally in charge of the Canadian government's sponsorship of the World Health Organization (WHO). As minister she is entrusted the discussions with Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO's director-general. She had a "good and frank conversation" with him via electronic means the week before the 73rd World Health Assembly.

Minister of Families, Children and Social Development and Government House Leader
Gould was shuffled to the families, children and social development portfolio on October 26, 2021. In May 2022, followings leaks of the American Supreme Court's draft opinion of Dobbs v. Jackson, Gould said American women could access abortions in Canada before Roe v. Wade was overturned. She also expressed concern for Canadian women who accessed abortion in the United States because of lack of access in Canada.

During the spring and summer of 2022, the government received criticism regarding long passport processing times, which fell under her ministerial responsibilities. The federal government had shut down Services Canada Centres and Passport Offices in March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and limited applications to "valid urgent travel reasons". Service Canada had warned of high demand for passport applications to come following the loosening of pandemic restrictions, which the government had underestimated. Slow processing times led to lengthy delays, forcing many Canadians to cancel travel plans.

Prior to a cabinet shuffle, Gould revealed she was expecting her second child and would take parental leave. She was appointed Leader of the Government in the House of Commons in July 2023. In September 2023, Canadian Parliament welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. During this visit, all present in the House of Commons, gave an elderly Ukrainian-Canadian veteran two standing ovations, unaware he had fought for a Nazi unit during World War II. This became known as the Yaroslav Hunka scandal. Amid this international controversy and "diplomatic embarrassment", Gould deleted a photo from social media of her encounter with Hunka, asked for the Speaker's resignation, and proposed the incident be stricken from official records. This motion was criticized and blocked by the opposition.

Personal life
Gould married her husband, Alberto Gerones, in 2010. 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 and the first Cabinet minister to take maternity leave. Her breastfeeding her then-three-month-old son during question period in the House of Commons attracted media attention during June 2018.