Jonathan Wilkinson

Jonathan Wilkinson PC MP (born June 11, 1965) is a Canadian Liberal politician, who was elected to represent the riding of North Vancouver in the House of Commons of Canada in the 2015 federal election, and re-elected in the 2019 election. He was sworn in as the Minister of Environment and Climate Change on November 20, 2019. Wilkinson previously served as the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard. Before entering politics, Wilkinson was a constitutional negotiator and businessman who spent twenty years in the private sector, mainly with green technology companies.

Early life and career

Wilkinson was born in Sault Ste. Marie and grew up in Saskatoon. He was the former leader of the New Democratic Party's youth wing in Saskatchewan.

Wilkinson earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Saskatchewan and went on to be named the Prairies Rhodes Scholar in 1988, reading Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at Exeter College, Oxford. He earned master's degrees in international relations, politics, and economics from Oxford and McGill.

Wilkinson was an advisor to Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow and served in the provincial civil service from 1991 to 1995, when he joined Bain & Company's Toronto branch. In 1999, he relocated to Vancouver to work for QuestAir Technologies, a gas purification company and he became its CEO in 2002. In 2009, he became the senior vice-president for business development in Nexterra Systems, a biomass company. In 2011, Wilkinson became the CEO of BioteQ Environmental Technologies, a water treatment company based in Vancouver.

On November 20, 2019, Wilkinson was appointed Minister of Environment and Climate Change in the 30th Canadian Ministry.

Electoral history