Christine Melnick

Minister of Immigration and Multiculturalism

Biography

Christine Melnick was elected as the MLA for Riel in June of 2003.  On January 13, 2012, Premier Greg Selinger appointed Christine Minister of Immigration and Multiculturalism.  Christine has also served as Minister of Family Services and Housing with additional responsibility for Persons with Disabilities from 2003 to 2006 and Minister of Water Stewardship from 2006 to 2012.

Christine Melnick was born, raised, and educated in the heart of the Riel constituency, where she currently resides. She attended Minnetonka School and Dakota Collegiate, and earned a BA Hons. from the University of Manitoba. She went on to earn a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from Dalhousie University.

Christine’s professional work has given her experience with profit and non-profit organizations in both the public and private sectors, including education, law, offshore oil and advertising. She has worked as a librarian with the Hibernia Offshore Oil Project, the Donald Marshall Jr. Commission of Inquiry, and the Toronto Harbour Commission.

Prior to her June 2003 election, she served as regionalization co-ordinator, librarian and researcher for the Canada/Manitoba Business Service Centre. The position allowed Christine to travel throughout the province to work with business people, community groups and economic development organizations. Her work brings her in touch with the Aboriginal, Métis, Francophone and Anglophone communities.

Christine has long been active in women’s health, human rights, literacy and environmental issues. Prior to her election, she was a trustee for Louis Riel School Division and sat on the province’s Council on Post-Secondary Education.

Christine has developed a program called Share the Magic, through which she collects gently used books and then gives them away in communities that don’t have many books. She works in partnership with community groups, not for profit organizations, schools and other entities to create community libraries or to co-ordinate book give aways. To date, Share the Magic has given away over 50,000 books.