The daughter of a French-Canadian mother and a Somali father who came to Canada as a student from Djibouti in the 1980s in search of higher education, Myriam Djilane was born in Ottawa and raised in Sandy Hill. She has now proudly made Lowertown her home. With relatives and friends in every corner of our beautiful community from Vanier to Overbrook to Beacon Hill to Pineview, she is very attuned to the local issues that concern people in this riding (notably affordable housing, the rising cost of living, the climate crisis, healthcare, French services, student debt and precarious employment), and well aware of the connections to the provincial level. For over a decade now, she has encouraged others, particularly young people and minorities, to engage more actively in the political process. She has driven neighbours to the polls and defended progressive policies. She ran in the 2020 Ottawa-Vanier by-election generating a real pushback against the Liberal powerhouse in the riding. She has been actively involved with the NDP in Ottawa-Vanier and has been actively advocating for more progressive voices in Ottawa at all levels. After studying social work in Ottawa, she specialized in performing arts interests in Toronto and is currently completing a degree at Carleton in human rights and social justice part-time while working for the federal government. Growing up within a Canadian diplomatic family, Myriam also had the opportunity to spend some years in Haiti, Ethiopia and Egypt, thus turning her into a polyglot who speaks six languages and relates to people from different cultures and socioeconomic circumstances. Despite the cold throughout February, she looks forward to reaching out and listening to what the people of Ottawa-Vanier want from their provincial representative. Not your typical politician, Myriam believes in representatives at all levels who better reflect the linguistic, socioeconomic and ethnic diversity of their constituents. For Myriam, student debt, affordable housing, equitable access to social services and healthcare for example, are not abstract concepts, but rather lived experiences affecting people through years of status quo perpetuated by the Liberals as well as the Conservative governments, that have not brought positive change. This experience will help her defend the interests of people of Ottawa-Vanier with authenticity and efficiency. Only one job is awaiting her in Toronto: defend the rights of the people of our community whose voices have not been heard at Queen's Park.