Joan Beatty

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Canadian politician

title: "Joan Beatty" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["living-people", "1940-births", "saskatchewan-new-democratic-party-mlas", "women-mlas-in-saskatchewan", "first-nations-women-in-politics", "saskatchewan-candidates-for-member-of-parliament", "21st-century-canadian-women-politicians", "liberal-party-of-canada-candidates-for-the-canadian-house-of-commons", "21st-century-members-of-the-legislative-assembly-of-saskatchewan"] description: "Canadian politician" topic_path: "politics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Beatty" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Canadian politician ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox officeholder"]

Field	Value
honorific-prefix	The Honourable
name	Joan Beatty
honorific-suffix	ECS
birth_date
birth_place	Deschambault Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada
office	MLA for Cumberland
term_start	November 5, 2003
term_end	January 10, 2008
predecessor	Keith Goulet
successor	Doyle Vermette
party	Liberal Party of Canada
otherparty	Saskatchewan New Democratic Party
::

Joan Beatty (born 1940) is a Canadian politician. She was the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party (NDP) member of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan for the constituency of Cumberland. On January 3, 2008 she was appointed the Liberal Party of Canada's candidate for the House of Commons of Canada in Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River for the March 17, 2008 by-election.

However, she lost the federal by-election to Conservative candidate Rob Clarke. She was born in 1940, at Deschambault Lake, Saskatchewan.

Provincial career

A former CBC journalist,

Federal politics

In 2007 she was approached by both the federal NDP and the federal Liberal party to run in the Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River by-election. Beatty told the press that she would decide by January 2008 whether she will run federally and for which party. On January 3, 2008 Beatty was selected as the Liberal candidate for the riding. She accepted the Liberals' offer and was appointed the party's candidate by leader Stéphane Dion on January 3.

Beatty defended her decision to switch from the provincial NDP to the federal Liberals saying that the Liberals have a better chance of taking power and "the one thing that I have found out [is] that you have to be in government to have say when it comes to policy or budget decisions or raising issues at that level." She said she was initially approached by the federal Liberals in the summer of 2007 but decided to run provincially in hopes that the Lorne Calvert-led Saskatchewan NDP government would be returned to office.

Beatty's appointment as the Liberal candidate angered supporters of anti-free trade activist David Orchard who had earlier announced his candidacy for the Liberal nomination. Metis leader Jim Durocher wrote a letter to Dion complaining about his decision to appoint a candidate rather than allow for party members to vote in a nomination meeting. He argued that "the people of this riding resent, and I personally resent mightily, the attitude of certain southerners that they know what's best for our riding." Durocher, a former Liberal candidate and Orchard supporter, also told Dion "If you impose Joan Beatty, the Liberals will lose this riding."

National Liberal campaign co-chair David Smith defended Beatty's appointment by saying that Dion had made getting more women into politics a priority, saying that the party is "prepared to bite the bullet to demonstrate that our commitment to increasing our number of women candidates - particularly well-qualified ones - is very real."

Beatty ultimately lost the ensuing byelection by a substantial margin. Nonetheless, she sought the Liberal nomination again for the forthcoming 40th Canadian federal election, this time in an open vote of the Liberal riding association with Orchard also a candidate. Orchard won the nomination.

Electoral record

References

[http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5i6LTn4LxZExIZB_xoWhoo4dFDuFQ "Former Sask. NDP cabinet minister will run as Liberal in federal byelection"], ''Canadian Press'', January 3, 2008 {{webarchive. link. (January 7, 2008)
"Dancing Backwards – Thank You".
https://www.metismuseum.ca/media/document.php/14698.Joan%20Beatty.pdf {{Bare URL PDF. (August 2025)
"NDP Caucus - Joan Beatty, MLA".
(March 2023)
Canadian Press, "[http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5i6LTn4LxZExIZB_xoWhoo4dFDuFQ Former Sask. NDP cabinet minister will run as Liberal in federal byelection], January 3, 2008 {{webarchive. link. (January 7, 2008)
"Rift opens in Liberal party over appointment of NDP MLA to run in Saskatchewan", ''Canadian Press'', January 4, 2008
link. (2015-12-15 Vancouver Sun, August 14, 2008.)
link. (2015-12-15 Canwest News Service, August 15, 2008.)

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