National Network for Equitable Library Service

Libby Davies is a Canadian activist and politician from British Columbia. She moved to Vancouver in 1968 and served as a city councillor from 1982 to 1993, then represented the federal riding of Vancouver East from 1997 to 2015 under the New Democratic Party banner. She was named a Member of the Order of Canada in 2016 and is Canada's first openly lesbian MP. For more than four decades, Libby Davies has worked steadfastly for social justice. She became a community organizer in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside at the age of nineteen, later became active in Vancouver municipal politics, and eventually worked her way to become Deputy Leader of the federal New Democratic Party. Davies lays bare the challenges she has faced with candid reflections on her experience as both an insider in the established political world and an outsider working in the activist community on controversial issues such as homelessness, sex workers' rights, and ending drug prohibition. 2019.