BC Gov News

Honourable Mitzi Dean

Mitzi Dean was first elected as MLA for Esquimalt-Metchosin, the territory of the Lekwungen Peoples, in May 2017. She was appointed Minister of Children and Family Development in November 2020 and was reappointed in December 2022.

She is chair of the Cabinet Committee on Social Initiatives. In the previous term of government, she served as parliamentary secretary for gender equity.

Mitzi moved to British Columbia in 2005 and was appointed as the executive director of the Pacific Centre Family Services Association in 2007. In that role, she managed a professional team that each year served more than 1,000 children, youth, families and seniors who were affected by trauma, violence and mental-health issues. Her leadership helped launch a project that led to the building of the 1,394-square-metre (15,000 sq. ft.) Centre for Well-Being and a 100-unit affordable housing complex.

She took on many roles on boards and committees, including the board of the Federation of Community Social Services of BC and the Victoria Family Court Youth Justice Committee.

Mitzi’s career in community social services, including professional social work, began more than three decades ago. She qualified as a social worker in 1993 with a diploma and master’s degree in social work, and worked across the United Kingdom from front-line roles to a national development manager for children’s services with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Her volunteer work in this sector included running children’s programs in a women’s transition house and volunteering in a Romanian orphanage.

Mitzi lives in Metchosin with her family.