Tina Beaudry-Mellor

Tina Beaudry-Mellor is a Canadian politician, who was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan in the 2016 provincial election.[1] She represented the electoral district of Regina University as a member of the Saskatchewan Party until her defeat in the 2020 Saskatchewan general election.

Prior to running for provincial office, Beaudry-Mellor ran and came second in a race for Regina City Council in October 2012 in the southeast Ward 4.

Beaudry-Mellor was named to the Executive Council of Saskatchewan on August 23, 2016 as the Minister of Social Services and Minister Responsible for the Status of Women.[2]

On August 15, 2017, Beaudry-Mellor announced her candidacy for the leadership of the Saskatchewan Party to succeed Brad Wall. Although she was the first candidate to announce her race, Beaudry-Mellor came fifth on the first ballot, with only 1.32% of the votes.[3]

In 2017, Beaudry-Mellor received widespread criticism as minister for approving cuts to funeral services as part of a very difficult Saskatchewan budget which saw revenues from resources fall by $3B. However, her work on the innovation and tech sector is well known. She is the author of the Saskatchewan Technology Startup Incentive, the most aggressive angel investment tax credit in Western Canada. As Minister Responsible for Innovation Saskatchewan, she led numerous initiatives to grow the start up ecosystem in Saskatchewan, helping Saskatoon become one of the fastest growing tech hubs in Canada and seeing a record year in venture capital investment in 2019.[4] She also helped get important investment funds like the Ag-Tech Growth Fund off the ground.[5]

On the innovation front, was instrumental in securing both federal and provincial investment into VIDO Intervac's research for a vaccine for COVID-19 as well as funds for their planned manufacturing facility.[6]

As Minister Responsible for the Status of Women, she partnered with Women Entrepreneurs of Saskatchewan to launch the first-in-Canada Women's Economic Advisory table.[7] She was also instrumental in ensuring that Saskatchewan was the first province in Canada to enact Clare's Law to support potential victims of interpersonal violence as well as numerous other initiatives, including bringing attention to sexual assault victims.[8][9]

In 2018, she led the Canadian Ministers for Education Canada delegation at the first ever G20 talks on Education and Employment and in 2019, she led the delegation at the 40th general conference of UNESCO.