Joy Smith

Joy Ann Smith
Joy Smith, September 23, 2009
Member of Parliament for Kildonan—St. Paul
In office June 28, 2004 – August 4, 2015
Preceded by	First Member
Succeeded by	MaryAnn Mihychuk
Member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba for Fort Garry
In office September 21, 1999 – June 3, 2003
Preceded by	Rosemary Vodrey
Succeeded by	Kerri Irvin-Ross
Chair of the Standing Committee on Health
In office November 15, 2007 – November 17, 2013
Minister	Tony Clement Leona Aglukkaq Rona Ambrose
Preceded by	Rob Merrifield
Succeeded by	Ben Lobb
Personal details
Born	(1947-02-20) February 20, 1947 Deloraine, Manitoba, Canada
Political party	Canadian Alliance (2001–2003) Conservative (2003–present)
Spouse	Bart Smith
Residence	East St. Paul, Manitoba
Profession	Music teacher

Joy Ann Smith (born February 20, 1947) is a Canadian politician. She served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba between 1999 and 2003, and was in the House of Commons of Canada from 2004 to 2015.

Education and business career

Smith was born in Deloraine, Manitoba, Canada. She holds a Master's Degree in Education from the University of Manitoba (majoring in Math and Science), and a music diploma from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Ontario. She worked as a teacher for twenty-three years before entering political life, and in 1986 received the Hedley Award for Excellence in Research. During the 1990s, she served as a liaison for private and home-schooling groups.

Smith is also an entrepreneur. She published a book entitled Lies My Kid's Teacher Told Me in 1996, and a follow-up entitled, Tools of the Trade a few years later. She was also the owner of Gem Records for a time. In 1996, she was nominated for Manitoba's Woman Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Career in provincial politics

Smith was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba in the 1999 provincial election, as a Progressive Conservative (PC) candidate in the south-central Winnipeg constituency of Fort Garry. She was nominated after the incumbent member of the assembly, cabinet minister Rosemary Vodrey, chose not to run again. In one of the closest constituency races of the campaign, Smith narrowly defeated New Democrat Lawrie Cherniack by thirty votes. The New Democratic Party replaced the Conservatives' majority government with one of their own at the election, and Smith served as the Progressive Conservative critic for education and justice.

In 2002, as justice critic for the Manitoba Progressive Conservatives, she spoke against a bill which provided adoption rights to same-sex couples in that province. Smith argued that her party did not oppose same-sex adoption rights as such, but that the proposed legislation was flawed.

Fort Garry was a top NDP target in the 2003 election, and Smith lost the constituency to New Democrat Kerri Irvin-Ross by eighty-seven votes.

Career in federal politics

In a June 2005 parliamentary debate on same-sex marriage, she stated that, "If (her daughter) decides to get married, she will know that the meaning of marriage is the union of a man and a woman. If she chooses otherwise, it will be her choice." The result of the bill, she said, would be to "cause marriage to just go away with the stroke of a pen." She also claimed the bill was discriminatory against married couples. The Toronto Star reported that Smith broke down in tears during the debate.

She was also a member of the Status of Women Group, Ukrainian-Canadian Parliamentary Group, Canada-Israel Parliamentary Group and Canada-USA Relations Parliamentary Group. In 2004, Smith was selected to be part of the Canadian delegation assigned to travel to Ukraine and observe a court-ordered repeat of the second round of voting the presidential election.

In the 2004 federal election, Smith campaigned as a Conservative candidate in the north Winnipeg riding of Kildonan—St. Paul. She had previously been nominated as a candidate of the Canadian Alliance, where she was the Manitoba organizer for Stockwell Day's bid for leadership, before that party merged with the Progressive Conservatives in 2003–04. Smith narrowly defeated Liberal candidate Terry Duguid, 13,582 votes to 13,304. Smith was named Manitoba caucus chair, giving her a seat on the Conservative Party's Planning and Priorities Committee.

Smith defeated Duguid again by a significantly larger plurality in the 2006 federal election, as the Conservatives won a national minority government, replacing the Liberals as such. Smith along with the Conservative government were re-elected in the October 2008 federal election to another minority government. In 2006, Smith introduced a private member's bill, asking parliamentarians to condemn human trafficking and come up with a comprehensive plan to combat the problem.

In February 2007, Smith put forward motion C-153 to put a national action plan in place to combat human trafficking, and the House of Commons passed the motion unanimously. Smith began developing the plan in 2008 and continued to work on it for several years. She sought to have the plan developed and established in order "to rescue and restore the victims and prosecute the offenders" of human trafficking. The plan was established by the Government of Canada on June 6, 2012 as the National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking.

Also in 2007, Smith introduced a private member's bill called the Clean Internet Act (Bill C-427). The bill was passed unanimously, and set in place a strategy to combat human trafficking globally by opposing such trafficking across international borders, specifically in the case of women and children being trafficked for sexual purposes. In her words, the bill would "... prevent the use of the Internet to distribute child pornography, material that advocates, promotes or incites racial hatred, and material that portrays or promotes violence against women." Part of the bill proposes a "know your subscriber" requirement for ISPs and would mandate them to deny Internet access to offenders. It also proposes to give special searching powers to the Ministry of Industry. The above features have led it to be criticized as something that "... would not look out-of-place in countries that aggressively censor the Internet."

In her column, "Sex traders, keep your hands off our children!" (The Province, July 29), Smith asserted that "the average age of entry into prostitution in Canada is between 12 and 14 years of age." In October 2010, Smith conducted the inaugural Honouring Heroes Award Ceremony at Eastview Community Church, an annual event recognizing people who have fought to support victims of sexual trafficking.

In 2012, Smith presented human-trafficking-related Bill C-10 to the Senate of Canada. The bill was eventually passed as the Safe Streets and Communities Act, a policy of the Canadian government. While Smith was in Ottawa to present Bill C-10, she was also scheduled to speak on the talkback panel in conjunction with the human-trafficking-related play She Has a Name.

Smith proposed and claimed to be working on, in July 2013, a bill that disallows access to pornography online for all Canadians by default unless they choose to opt in, similar to earlier legislation put forward in the U.K. by British Prime Minister David Cameron. Details of what content specifically would be deemed "pornographic" and blocked were not provided.

She did not run for re-election in 2015.

Out of politics

In 2012, while in political office, Joy founded The Joy Smith Foundation Inc., a registered charity that works to suppress human trafficking in Canada. After retiring from politics, Joy began working full-time for her organization.

Electoral record

2008 Canadian federal election
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	±%	Expenditures
	Conservative	Joy Smith	19,751	53.40%	+10.27%	$64,584
	New Democratic	Ross Eadie	12,093	32.70%	+12.53%	$25,719
	Liberal	Lesley Hughes	3,009	8.14%	-25.33%
	Green	Kevan Bowkett	1,685	4.60%	+1.89%	$101
	Christian Heritage	Jordan Loewen	233	0.63%	–	$1,302
	Independent	Eduard Hiebert	214	0.58%	+0.06%	$3,872
Total valid votes/Expense limit			36,985	100.00%	$78,899
Total rejected ballots			156
Turnout			37,141

2006 Canadian federal election
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	±%	Expenditures
	Conservative	Joy Smith	17,524	43.13%	+5.83%	$58,321
	Liberal	Terry Duguid	13,597	33.47%	-3.06%	$70,764
	New Democratic	Evelyn Myskiw	8,193	20.17%	-2.35%	$16,314
	Green	Colleen Zobel	1,101	2.71%	+0.64%	$0.00
	Independent	Eduard Hiebert	213	0.52%	–	$3,521
Total valid votes			40,628	100.00%
Total rejected ballots			137
Turnout			40,765

2004 Canadian federal election: Kildonan—St. Paul
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	Expenditures
	Conservative	Joy Smith	13,582	37.30	$53,156
	Liberal	Terry Duguid	13,304	36.54	$64,174
	New Democratic	Lorene Mahoney	8,202	22.53	$32,688
	Green	Jacob Giesbrecht	756	2.08	$1,929
	Marijuana	Rebecca Whittaker	290	0.80	not listed
	Christian Heritage	Katharine Reimer	278	0.76	$1,475
Total valid votes/expenditure limit			36,412	100.00	71,091
Total rejected ballots			117
Turnout			36,529	60.19
Electors on the lists			60,689
Percentage change figures are factored for redistribution. Conservative Party percentages are contrasted with the combined Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative percentages from 2000. Sources: Official Results, Elections Canada and Financial Returns, Elections Canada.

2003 Manitoba general election: Fort Garry
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	±%	Expenditures
	New Democratic	Kerri Irvin-Ross	3,852	46.75	3.13	$21,049.74
	Progressive Conservative	Joy Smith	3,765	45.69	1.78	$29,935.35
	Liberal	Taran Malik	562	6.82	-4.50	$13,984.00
	Independent	Didz Zuzens	61	0.74	–	$395.34
Total valid votes			8,240	–	–
Rejected			55	–
Eligible voters / turnout			13,066	63.49	-11.60
Source(s) Source: Manitoba. Chief Electoral Officer (2003). Statement of Votes for the 38th Provincial General Election, June 3, 2003 (PDF) (Report). Winnipeg: Elections Manitoba.

1999 Manitoba general election: Fort Garry
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	±%	Expenditures
	Progressive Conservative	Joy Smith	4,436	43.92	-4.37	$28,543.84
	New Democratic	Lawrie Cherniack	4,406	43.62	28.57	$29,325.00
	Liberal	Ted Gilson	1,143	11.32	-24.61	$9,808.98
	Manitoba	Denise Van Rooyen	116	1.15	–	$1,032.59
Total valid votes			10,101	–	–
Rejected			37	–
Eligible voters / turnout			13,502	75.09	3.93
Source(s) Source: Manitoba. Chief Electoral Officer (1999). Statement of Votes for the 37th Provincial General Election, September 21, 1999 (PDF) (Report). Winnipeg: Elections Manitoba.

External links

• Joy Smith – Parliament of Canada biography