Jae Nicholls (aka Jamie Nicholls; born October 15, 1971) is a Canadian social democrat and politician. They were a New Democratic Party Member of Parliament from 2011 to 2015 and was later the mayor of Hudson, Quebec.
Born in Montreal and raised in Hudson, Nicholls attended both St-Thomas elementary and Hudson High School. They became a New Democrat while enrolled at Malaspina College (now Vancouver Island University) in Nanaimo, BC at the age of 18. They graduated from the University of Victoria with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Arts in 1995. During that period, they were an outspoken social and environmental activist in Victoria, BC.
Upon graduating, Nicholls lived and taught in South Korea and Turkey. They were a lecturer in Visual Communication Design in the Faculty of Communications at Istanbul's Bahcesehir University until 2003. They returned to Canada to pursue a graduate degree in landscape architecture from the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of British Columbia. Graduating in 2007, they returned to Quebec to work as a landscape architect.
Nicholls is a former Member of Parliament in Canada's 41st parliament. They were elected to represent Vaudreuil-Soulanges in the House of Commons of Canada in the 2011 election.Election 2011: Vaudreuil-Soulanges. The Globe and Mail, May 2, 2011 On June 20, 2011 Jack Layton appointed them to serve as the Vice-Chair for standing committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities for the official opposition. In 2015, she was appointed Vice-Chair for the standing committee on Official Languages. She was defeated in the 2015 Red Tide election by Liberal Peter Schiefke.
In November 2017, Nicholls was elected mayor of Hudson, Quebec. She lost in the 2021 municipal election.
They live in Rigaud with their wife Amanda MacDonald and their five children. Nicholls is transgender and started publicly identifying as gender fluid/non-binary after leaving politics.
Life and career
After studying and working in Vancouver, South Korea, and Turkey, they returned to Quebec permanently in 2007. Before their election to Parliament, Nicholls worked in a variety of fields: arts and design teacher, environmental researcher, ecological intervention adviser, registered landscape architect (AAPQ) and was a board member of COBAVER (Conseil des bassins versants Vaudreuil-Soulanges).
To win their seat in the House of Commons, Nicholls defeated incumbent Bloc Québécois MP Meili Faille. They were friends in high school.Bloc Quebecois' Faille loses to a friend in Vaudreuil-Soulanges. The Gazette, 2011-05-02.
Working as a landscape architect while they were enrolled at McGill University's School of Urban Planning, Nicholls was one of five current McGill students, alongside undergraduates Mylène Freeman, Matthew Dubé, Charmaine Borg and Laurin Liu, elected to Parliament in the 2011 election following the NDP's unexpected mid-campaign surge in Quebec.
Following their defeat in the 2015 election, Nicholls ran for mayor of Hudson in Quebec's 2017 municipal elections,"Hudson election: Jamie Nicholls for mayor". Montreal Gazette, October 4, 2017. and won the election."Montreal election results: Three-way races in Hudson, St-Lazare". Montreal Gazette, November 5, 2017.
Electoral history 2017 Quebec municipal elections: Hudson Mayoral candidate Vote % Jae Nicholls 1,788 73.64 William Nash 507 20.88 Joseph H. Eletr 133 5.48 Total 2428 100.00 Source: Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Quebec)
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