Celina Caesar-Chavannes is the Member of Parliament for Whitby. She served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister from December 2015 to January 2017 and is currently the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development et la Francophonie.
Mrs. Caesar-Chavannes was a successful entrepreneur from 2005 to 2015, owning a successful research management consulting firm focused on neurological research. She was the recipient of both the Toronto Board of Trade’s Business Entrepreneur of the Year for 2012 and the 2007 Black Business and Professional Association’s Harry Jerome Young Entrepreneur Award. Mrs. Caesar-Chavannes was a well-known research consultant and who worked with a variety of private, government and non-government organizations. Her work required her to build and manage effective collaboration across a wide range of interests and perspectives, and has many years of experience managing complex projects involving industry, federal agencies, health care professionals, researchers and patient advocacy groups.
An international lecturer on the inclusion of marginalized populations in clinical research, Ms. Caesar-Chavannes has a Bachelor of Science from the University of Toronto, an MBA in Healthcare Management, and an Executive MBA from the Rotman School of Management. She is a past member of the Governing Council of the University of Toronto. She also served as member of the Institutional Advisory Board of the Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction, part of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. She is also a member of the Congress of Black Women.
During her short term as a politician thus far, she has advocated for people suffering with mental illness and was awarded the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health Champions of Mental Health Parliamentarian Award in May 2017. She was also named one of the Most Influential People of African Descent, Global 100 Under 40, Politics & Governance in 2017.
Ms. Caesar-Chavannes has deep roots in Whitby, where she lives with her husband and three children.