Andrea Khanjin
Andrea Daria Khanjin is a Canadian politician who has been the Ontario minister of the environment, conservation and parks since 2023 and the member of Provincial Parliament for Barrie—Innisfil since 2018. A member of the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party, Khanjin was previously her caucus' deputy house leader from 2020 to 2024 and deputy party whip from 2022 to 2023. She was also a parliamentary assistant from 2018 to 2023. Khanjin is the first Jewish woman to be a PC cabinet minister.
Political career
Khanjin ran as the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario candidate in the 2018 Ontario general election for the riding of Barrie-Innisfil, won with 22,121 votes, and defeated the Liberal incumbent by 16,576 votes. She was re-elected in 2022 Ontario general election.Following her election in 2018, during Khanjin's first term, she served as a member of Finance and Economic Affairs, Estimates, and Government Agencies Committees. During this term she also successfully introduced a private member's bill and co-sponsored two other bills. On June 5, 2019, she introduced an Act to proclaim the Provincial Day of Action on Litter as her private member's bill; on March 1, 2020, Khanjin and Cuzzetto introduced an Act to proclaim Sickle Cell Disease Awareness Day and Thalassemia Awareness Day, and; she co-sponsored an Act to proclaim the month of August as Emancipation Month on December 8, 2021. All of these bills proceeded and received Royal Assents.
Provincial Day of Action on Litter
To raise awareness of the importance to a clean environment of not littering, Khanjin introduced an Act to proclaim the Provincial Day of Action on Litter every second Tuesday in May in each year as her first private member's bill.Ontario marked the First Provincial Day of Action on Litter at the Innisfil Beach Park in the Town of Innisfil on May 12, 2020.