From one legislature to another
Newly elected Liberal MP Stephanie McLean made Alberta’s legislative assembly more family-friendly and stood up for seniors as a provincial MLA
New Liberal MP Stephanie McLean vividly recalls being 10 years old when Anne McLellan came door-knocking in her Edmonton neighbourhood.
“She came with the local candidate,” says McLean, a lawyer whose practice recently focused on labour and employment law.
“I was just enamoured with this strong, smart woman at my door who really articulated in simple terms where the Liberal party sat politically, in the centre. It sort of reminded me of the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears – not too cold, not too hot, just right.”
It was 1997, and McLellan was a rising Liberal star. She would later serve as justice minister, solicitor general, attorney general, and deputy prime minister.
She left a lasting impression that day in Edmonton.
“Her knocking at my door helped me see myself as a politician,” says McLean, who was named secretary of state for seniors when Prime Minister Mark Carney formed his new cabinet on May 13.
“She’s a lawyer as well, and she really sort of set out what that path looked like for a young girl. It’s always stuck in my mind.”
McLean won the B.C. riding of Esquimalt – Saanich – Sooke on April 28 by about 15,000 votes and 49 per cent of the total.
The victory was all the more impressive considering she had only joined the Liberal party two months earlier.
Her first stint in politics was as a New Democrat MLA in Alberta, from 2015 to 2019, where she served in former premier Rachel Notley’s cabinet as the minister for status of women and service Alberta.
McLean made headlines in 2016 when she had her son Patrick, becoming the first Alberta MLA to give birth while in office.
In the wake of that, some things around the legislature had to change.
“Spouses were not allowed security access to offices,” she says, which barred her husband Shane from helping out while she worked.
“There were no change tables. The hours of the legislature were extraordinarily not family-friendly.”
When McLean tried to check on her parental leave policy, she found there wasn’t one. Legislature rules mentioned leave for sickness or a death in the family, but not pregnancy or childbirth.
A committee was formed to recommend updates, including high chairs in the cafeteria.
“Since I’ve departed the Alberta legislature, a lot more has been implemented,” she says.
Those who want to become MLAs “can have a clear sense going in from the outside what things will look like for them and their families when they take that step into politics.”
McLean is especially proud that under her leadership, Alberta was the first province to introduce legislation allowing non-binary identity documents.
It also banned door-to-door energy sales.
“I think that’s made a really big difference for vulnerable communities like seniors who were primarily preyed upon by folks trying to sell very expensive energy contracts for home heating and electricity,” she says.
“Many people found themselves trapped in these contracts because they were faced with very forceful, pushy salespeople who would often lie to them.”
McLean will draw on that experience in her new role as secretary of state, albeit under a different political banner.
She and her family moved to B.C. in 2019, ultimately settling in Colwood on Vancouver Island, where she worked remotely for Surrey-based Forte Workplace Law.
Tariff threats and “the state of our geopolitical world” propelled her to join the Liberal party last winter in time to vote in the March 9 leadership race, she says.
“I was very motivated to ensure that we would have a prime minister who could meet the moment and provide real leadership and expertise in such a crucial moment in Canadian history.”
McLean reached out to the local riding association after Carney became leader and volunteered to help.
“I was expecting to knock on doors for another candidate.”
Instead, she was asked to fill a last-minute vacancy and run.
“I expected it to be a nail-biter, and I had three lawyers on my special ballot count because we were worried it was going to be close.”
With a decisive win and now a junior minister’s role, McLean says she’ll work hard to include seniors in the minority government’s mandate to help Canadians through tough economic times.
The University of Calgary graduate was called to the bar in Alberta in 2013. She credits her parents for instilling the importance of education, hard work and persistence.
“They came from blue-collar backgrounds,” she says. “Neither of them had very much. Both of them dropped out of high school and … ended up graduating from university later in life.”
Her late father became a petroleum engineer, and her mother a nurse.
“They’ve both been really good examples of overcoming adversity. They taught me the value of sticking with things, of seeing hope in dark times and knowing that there is a better future possible.”
