Melanie Mark, an Indigenous member of the British Columbia legislature and two-time cupboard minister, is stepping down as MLA for Vancouver-Mount Nice, she introduced within the legislature Wednesday.
The previous tourism minister, who resigned from cupboard and took a medical go away in September, cited private and systemic causes in her resolution to go away provincial politics on Wednesday.
“This place felt like a torture chamber,” she stated whereas holding an eagle feather throughout a particular deal with to the legislature. “I cannot miss the character assassination.”
Mark, whose legislature biography describes her as “the primary First Nations girl Member of the Legislative Meeting in British Columbia’s historical past,” was first elected in a byelection in 2016.
Earlier than assuming the tourism portfolio, Mark served as minister of superior schooling, expertise and coaching.
She additionally helped launch the world’s first Indigenous Legislation Program on the College of Victoria in 2018.
“In some ways I’ve achieved what I got here right here to do, nevertheless it’s additionally a incontrovertible fact that establishments basically resist change,” Mark advised her legislature colleagues.
“They’re allergic to doing issues in another way, notably colonial establishments like this legislative meeting and authorities at giant.”
Mark’s resignation units the stage for a second byelection in 2023, after former premier John Horgan introduced he would step down as MLA for Langford-Juan de Fuca in March.
“Each reminiscence I’ve of working with Melanie is a treasured one and I am so grateful to have been her colleague,” Premier David Eby stated following Mark’s deal with within the legislature.
Mark disclosed that she was just lately identified with consideration deficit hyperactivity dysfunction (ADHD), and she or he additionally spoke candidly about her relations’ prior struggles with medicine and alcohol.
“By no means say by no means, however for now my canoe is heading in a unique course,” she stated. “I’m not quitting. If something I’m standing up for myself.”
