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Cheri DiNovo, MPP, is a Canadian social democratic politician. She is an United Church of Canada minister and previously headed the Emmanuel-Howard Park congregation in Toronto, Ontario. As the New Democratic Party of Ontario (NDP) candidate in Parkdale–High Park, she was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in a by-election on 14 September 2006. She was re-elected in the 10 October 2007 general election.Performed the first legalized same sex marriage in North America in September 2001. Won the Lambda Washington DC award for 'Qu(e)erying Evangelism' in 2005 for Spirituality and Religion.

Personal life and religious views
A progressive, social justice-oriented minister who favours inclusion of marginalized groups, including women, LGBT people and the poor and homeless into the mainstream of Christian life, DiNovo began her church ministry career in 1992, leaving behind a career in the corporate world, after her husband died in a motorcycle accident. She has two children, Francesca and Damien Zielinski, and is now married to Gil Gaspar.

DiNovo hosts a weekly radio show, The Radical Reverend, on Toronto's CIUT-FM. Her book Qu(e)erying Evangelism: Growing a Community from the Outside In won the Lambda Literary Award in the Spirituality category for 2006.

NDP nomination and 2006 Parkdale–High Park by-election
When Gerard Kennedy stepped down as the Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Parkdale–High Park, the NDP was not expected to win the seat. With that gloomy outlook in mind, two candidates came forward to contest the NDP nomination: DiNovo and former journalist, and at the time of the nomination, the executive director of the Canadian Arab Federation, Mohamed Boudjenane. The spirited campaign that followed lasted about a month, with both sides signing up large numbers of new members. Boudjenane was endorsed by United Steelworkers of America president Leo W. Gerard and the former president of the Ontario NDP, Andre Foucault. DiNovo had the support of NDP stalwart Michael Lewis and many members of the riding's executive. The nomination meeting took place in the middle of a heat wave on the evening of 17 July 2006, in the Parkdale Colegiate Institute auditorium. The sweltering auditorium was filled with over 300 people, most of them delegates. DiNovo defeated Boudjenane with a comfortable margin.

DiNovo defeated Liberal Sylvia Watson in the 14 September 2006 by-election to replace Gerard Kennedy in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. She officially took her seat in the Assembly on 25 September.

During the campaign, DiNovo acknowledged having been both a "street kid" and a user of recreational drugs in her youth. She was criticized for this by Watson's campaign.

The Liberals alleged that DiNovo endorsed the church ordination of pedophiles and axe murderers in Qu(e)erying Evangelism, when in fact she did not, and took DiNovo's past comments about Canadian murderer Karla Homolka out of context, saying the comments compared Homolka to a Christ-like figure, where instead they were used in reference to the dangers of scapegoating. The Liberals also did not mention DiNovo's expression of sympathy for Homolka's victims' families and the undue suffering she believed the media circus surrounding Karla was causing them. Many accused the Liberals of conducting a smear campaign.

Poverty and the $10 minimum wage campaign
On 23 October 2006, a Toronto Star column by Carol Goar said DiNovo had brought a new clarity and assertiveness to the NDP caucus' voice in the Ontario Legislative Assembly. Since entering the Assembly, DiNovo has approached a variety of poverty-related issues, including raising minimum wage and welfare rates in the province, creating more affordable housing and ending the government's tax clawback of the federal child benefit supplement.

Earlier in the year DiNovo had shared her experiences of drugs and poverty as a 15 year old, in a TV interview first shown on VisionTV on 9 March 2006. She said "I know what its like to live on the streets ... street kids are not bogey men, they are just poor".

39th Parliament election and sessions
DiNovo retained her seat in the 2007 Ontario general election and began serving her term in the Ontario Legislature's 39th Parliament sessions. The Parkdale–High Park campaign featured the same three major candidates as the 2006 by-election, with Watson and David Hutcheon representing the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives respectively. She increased the margin of victory from the 2006 by-election.

When Howard Hampton announced he was stepping down as leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party in June 2008, DiNovo was one of four MPPs, along with Michael Prue, Peter Tabuns and Andrea Horwath, whose names were suggested by party insiders as potential candidates in the 2009 Ontario NDP leadership convention. However, she was quoted in the Toronto Star a few days later as saying that she was unlikely to be a candidate, and she subsequently endorsed Tabuns for the leadership.

In September 2008, DiNovo received some criticism in the press after she allegedly fired her entire office staff by e-mail at 3 a.m. on Labour Day, and then rehired them later the same afternoon. DiNovo claimed that the story, which first appeared in the Inside Queen's Park newsletter and quoted unnamed sources, was a "huge exaggeration" that misrepresented her role in a normal labour negotiation process between her staff and the party office.

She became the Third Deputy Chair of the Committee of the Whole House, also known as the "Deputy Speaker", on 26 March 2009. On 16 September 2009, she was promoted to Second Deputy Chair of the Comittee of the Whole House.

During the 39th Parliament, DiNovo introduced many bills covering such concerns as Gender Identity, repealing dog-breed specific legislation, inclusionary housing, and safe bicycle passing guidelines. She also co-sponsored an all-party bill, that became law, calling for the commemoration of the Ukrainian genocide known as the Holodomor on the 15th of November each year in Ontario.