Shannon Phillips

Shannon Rosella Phillips (born September 4, 1975) is a Canadian politician who was elected in the 2015 and 2019 Alberta general elections to represent the electoral district of Lethbridge-West in the 29th and 30th Alberta Legislatures, respectively.

She is a member of the Alberta New Democratic Party.

Until then, the riding had voted PC since 1975.

Phillips has advocated on numerous issues, including Indigenous land claims, consultation and relations, climate change, human rights, technology industry programs (artificial intelligence strategy), renewable energy procurement, support for small and local breweries, public service wages and women's economic equality.

Phillips is an advocate for labour relations and bargaining rights.

Phillips is an advocate for the Water Act, which protects Water Act license holders to first-in-time, first-in-right system that protects investments in irrigation, a benefit to farmers.

Phillips has been advocating for Lethbridge's Supervised injection site (Safe Consumption Site) to expand for safe intox and detox support, as well as supportive housing.

Phillips graduated from the University of Alberta with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science with honours in 1999 and with a Master of Arts in 2002.

Phillips is an economic policy analyst who worked for the Alberta Federation of Labour for five years prior to political life, where she did much work on energy and environment-related matters.

She also served as chair of the group Womanspace Lethbridge for five years.

Phillips is an activist, a feminist, and is in favour of organized labour.

Phillips organized her first protest at age 17, which was successful in fighting Spruce Grove's curfew imposed on teenagers.

Phillips played roller derby for the Deathbridge Derby Dames team as Gnome Stompsky, an homage to American political writer and activist Noam Chomsky.

Her derby number, 4746, reflects the number of votes she received when she ran unsuccessfully for the Alberta NDP in the 2012 provincial election, her first campaign.

Phillips is conversational in French and is a mother of two sons.

In 2000, Phillips worked on Brian Mason's by-election campaign in Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood.

She worked as a communication aide during the early years Ralph Klein was premier of Alberta.

Phillips previously ran in the 2012 general election, losing to Progressive Conservative (PC) incumbent Greg Weadick.

She came second by approximately seven percentage points.

On May 24, 2015, she was sworn in as the Minister of Environment and Parks and Minister Responsible for the Status of Women in the Alberta Cabinet.

During the NDP government of 2015–2019, she also served as Minister Responsible for Climate Change and as the Deputy Government House Leader.

Phillips' mother was a physics teacher in Spruce Grove, where Phillips grew up with her parents and younger sister.

Phillips was successful in the 2015 general election, defeating Greg Weadick by almost 30%.

Shannon Phillips and Premier Rachel Notley released a climate change policy plan in 2015, which included a carbon price to be $30 per tonne by 2018, coal-fired power plants to be phased out by 2030, emissions from oil sands to be capped at 100 megatonnes per year, methane emissions to be reduced by 45% by 2025 in the oil & gas sector, and 30% of all electricity to be renewable generated by 2030.

Phillips' first act as Environment Minister was to ensure quality oil sands monitoring and that the chief scientist that is in charge of the report makes it public, and not to the Minister.

On June 24, 2016, the Wildrose Party, said during question period that Phillips' editorial work for a 2004 book by Greenpeace activist Mike Hudema, entitled An Action a Day Keeps Global Capitalism Away, would "make the business and industrial sectors even more jittery about the agenda of the new NDP government."

Phillips, who wrote the foreword and did some copy editing, said she did not contribute to the content.

On January 8, 2018, Phillips was in the news because of a Tweet, which Phillips said was sent by her assistant, in support of a Green Challenge by Environment Lethbridge, in which the Lethbridge organization called on all Albertans to undertake five actions for 30 days from January 15 through February 15.

This included "unplugging electronics, refraining from idling vehicles, using reusable shopping bags, reducing shower time, and going meatless for one day each week."

Rich Smith, executive director of Alberta Beef Producers, said that Environment Lethbridge's Green Challenge which suggested eating less meat was clearly done with "good intentions" but was misinformed as "going meatless for one day a week" would not "reduce people's environmental impact substantially."

After the United Conservative Party formed government in 2019, she was succeeded by Jason Nixon and Leela Aheer.

In the early days of the United Conservative Party (UCP) government that displaced the NDP's government at the 2019 Alberta general election, Phillips spoke against Bill 1 - The Act to Repeal the Carbon Tax.

Phillips spoke and voted against Bill 8, which she and others gave the sarcastic nickname "Bill Hate".

Phillips is an ally to the LGBTQ+ community and has spoken for and the protection of LGBTQ+ rights and freedoms, as she has strongly voted against the UCP Bill 8 - The Education Amendment Act, which would remove protections for LGBTQ+ youth from being outed by school staff or administration whenever a child joins a gay–straight alliance (GSA).

Phillips recalls growing up in a homophobic community where her peer confided in her their fears of being killed if the public were to fight out that they were gay, which greatly influenced Phillips' advocacy for GSAs.

On January 5, 2019, following alleged bullying and intimidation of the proposed Bighorn Wildland Provincial Park supporters, Minister Phillips issued a statement announcing that public consultations that were planned for Drayton Valley, Edmonton, Red Deer, and Sundre, would be cancelled and with announcements of alternative consultations.

The proposed region, situated between Banff National Park and Jasper National Park, would provide a vast and critical wildlife corridor for numerous wildlife species, including sensitive species, such as bull trout (Alberta's provincial fish), wolverine, and grizzly bears, that would extend from Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming in the south to the Yukon in Northern Canada.

According to a January 7, 2019 article in The Globe and Mail, some residents of Rocky Mountain House, a town of 7,000, led by UCP Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta (MLA) for Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre, Jason Nixon, oppose the creation of the park.

Nixon has made unfounded claims that the plan is a "foreign-funded plot to wall off the back country to Albertans who call the region home".

In January 2019, Phillips was criticized in the media for misleading Albertans, alleging the Royal Canadian Mounted Police advised her to cancel public consultations when no such advisement occurred.