Irene Mathyssen

Irene R. Mathyssen was born on 16 August 1951 in London, Ontario. She attended the University of Western Ontario from 1970 to 1975, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Drama and a Bachelor of Education.

She became a teacher and taught English at Saunders Secondary School in London, a job she held, apart from her years at Queen's Park, until she was elected to Parliament in 2006. She served on the District 11 political action committee of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, was a member of the Ontario Health Coalition and took part in local peace rallies against the 2003 invasion of Iraq. From 1989 to 1990 she was president of the Middlesex NDP riding association.

Provincial politics

In the 1990 Ontario general election Mathyssen won the rural riding of Middlesex for the New Democrats, defeating the Liberal incumbent Doug Reycraft by 520 votes out of more than 38,000 cast. In Bob Rae's government she served as a whip from 1990 to 1991 and as parliamentary assistant to the Minister of the Environment from 1991 to 1994, announcing six million dollars for the cleanup of rural beaches closed by agricultural runoff. In 1993 she voted against her own government's bill allowing London to annex land in her riding. On 21 October 1994 she was named Minister without Portfolio responsible for culture, tourism and recreation. She was defeated in 1995, finishing third behind the Progressive Conservative Bruce Smith, and later ran for the provincial seat of London-Fanshawe in 1999 and 2003, coming within 2,000 votes of winning on the second attempt.

Federal politics

After unsuccessful federal campaigns in London-Fanshawe in 1997 and 2004, Mathyssen won the seat in 2006 and was re-elected in 2008, 2011 and 2015, becoming the first New Democrat to represent London in the House of Commons. In 2011 she won half of the popular vote. She served as NDP critic for housing and for the status of women, deputy critic for public safety and veterans affairs, Official Opposition critic for seniors, and later critic for veterans affairs and deputy whip. From November 2011 to April 2012 she chaired the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

She championed the workers locked out of the Electro-Motive Diesel plant in London by Caterpillar in 2012 and proposed changes to the Investment Canada Act in response. In 2013 she introduced a bill to remove the tax on feminine hygiene products and later led an opposition day motion on the issue; backed by a petition of more than 74,000 Canadians, the motion passed with all party support and the tax was eliminated on 1 July 2015. In 2016 she moved a motion calling for federal coverage of prescription birth control. She announced in August 2018 that she would not seek a fifth term and left Parliament in 2019.

Later work

In September 2022 Mathyssen became president of the Douglas-Coldwell Foundation, an educational foundation associated with the NDP.

Mathyssen was married to Keith Mathyssen. Their daughter, Lindsay Mathyssen, succeeded her as the NDP member for London-Fanshawe in 2019 and was re-elected in 2021 before losing the seat in 2025. Mother and daughter campaigned together for years, including on pharmacare and birth control coverage.

She was diagnosed with colon cancer in the summer of 2024 and underwent chemotherapy. During the 2025 federal election she volunteered on her daughter's campaign, making calls and putting up lawn signs, and told the London Free Press: "We Mathyssen women are fighters."

Irene Mathyssen died on Monday 12 October 2026 at her home, after a battle with cancer, at the age of 75. A spokesperson for her family said she was surrounded by family, including her husband Keith and daughter Lindsay.

In a statement, Lindsay Mathyssen wrote: "My mom was so much more than a mother. She was someone I looked up to, someone who helped guide me through life, and someone whose strength and determination inspired me in ways words can never fully express." She added that her mother believed "our responsibility is to leave this world a better place than we found it."

Family friend Nadine Abi Raad said: "Irene was not an ordinary woman or politician. She was a fierce advocate for human rights, for education, for health care, for veterans." The family said details of a celebration of life would be announced in the coming days.

Mathyssen ran in ten elections and won five, serving nearly 18 years in public office. She was the first New Democrat elected to the House of Commons from London, and her campaign to end the federal tax on menstrual products, taken up by a grassroots petition, brought a lasting change in law from the opposition benches. Her daughter carried on her work in the same riding. Family friend Nadine Abi Raad said Mathyssen would be remembered for her commitment to social justice: "She was a voice for those who didn't have a voice. She fought for the most vulnerable people in the community."