Sophie was born and raised in Kingston. She received her education from Queen’s University, Humber College and Athabasca University.
Sophie has a long and positive history of work in public and stakeholder relations, is a solid team builder and is accustomed to work in stressful situations with unpredictable and continuously shifting priorities. She speaks French and English is her first language.
Sophie spent seventeen years working in retail management and as an entrepreneur. She spent five years living in Turkey and France studying English literature and French at Athabasca University part-time. She volunteered in an ex-patriot women’s group to raise funds in Turkey to help build their first women’s shelter. Upon returning to Canada from Europe, she started working in residential and commercial renovation, interior design, and rental property ownership.
Sophie ran for the Liberal nomination and became our Liberal MPP in the 2014 election. During her tenure, she has served as a Parliamentary Assistant to several ministers, most recently as PA to the Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation.
In 2014, Sophie focused attention on the issue of missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada. As part of her campaign to raise awareness, she publicized the Faceless Doll Project, an art project which uses faceless female dolls to represent the missing women.[7] On October 23, 2014 she read a Members' motion in the legislature calling on the Ontario Legislature to support the National Aboriginal Organisations' call on the Federal government to initiate a public inquiry to study the issue. In July 2020, Sophie revealed that she was running for the Ontario Liberal Party again with the nomination set to take place in 2022. She is a fellow Rotarian and is member of Kingston Waterfront Club.
Sophie Kiwala spoke about helping the community during the pandemic.
Before her presentation, Sophie talked about a project at Q.E.C.V.I. that helps financially challenged graduating students with the fee for post secondary applications. Having heard about what we are doing at Pathways, she thought this might be of interest to the club.
Sophie began her talk by sharing that she had lived overseas for five years, and when she returned, she wanted to start a business. Her brother in law’s experience has always continued to inspire her. He developed a company that made chimney liners, and went knocking on doors for contracts even before he knew how chimney liners were made. This kind of optimism has always struck her as the way to go about something.
After the 2019 election had taken place, and she found out about the Christmas time closure of programmes that provided free meals to people in need, she decided to take action. She reached out, looking for volunteers and for a source of training for herself. She attended Lunch by George to learn about how this could be done. She found two venues, at St. Luke’s Church and at the Renaissance Event Venue. Sophie was overwhelmed by the amount of support that her idea received. There were many donations of time and of food from the community. The Muslim Association sponsored and did the cooking at the Renaissance. It was really moving to see the number of volunteers. In fact, so many people wanted to help, she was having difficulty finding things for everyone to do. The owner of the Renaissance, Paul Fortier, was also very generous and helped with the cooking. Even a young boy made cards for all the gift bags.
After that program came Covid, and Sophie worried about changes in the food supply chain and how it would affect people in need. Two community members, Salahuddin and Ulfat Jalaluddin, came forward with an offer of having a large garden planted on their property which is near the Robinson Farm. Pyke Farms delivered compost and Loving Spoonful donated seed. Tomlinson Organic also provided some soil. Friendships developed among the volunteers who worked in the garden. A mask making project evolved from this project, and proceeds from that went to the Youth Shelter and the Humane Society. Many people were involved, wanting to give something back to the community.
Michelle Chatten-Fiedorec offered our thanks to Sophie with our traditional loaf of bread that has become virtual. Sophie was touched by our thanks and told us about something in the Koran that it reminded her of… If I had only two things, a loaf of bread and a hyacinth, I would give the loaf of bread to someone who needed it, and keep the hyacinth to feed my soul.