Former NDP cabinet minister Mark to resign Vancouver seat, cites health

VICTORIA — A former New Democrat cabinet minister who gave what was likely her last speech in the legislature Wednesday, said she was proud of her accomplishments despite working in an institution she called a “torture chamber.”

Melanie Mark held an eagle feather and wore her grandfather’s beaded, buckskin jacket as she looked back on a political career but forward to her life ahead.

Mark, the first First Nations woman elected to B.C.'s legislature and the first to serve in a cabinet, wiped away tears as she described her battles to be a change-making champion in a “colonial institution.”

“There's a lot that I'm proud of, but this journey has been challenging and has come at a significant personal toll,” she said.

“The place felt like a torture chamber. I will not miss the character assassination. The fact is the political environment is cutthroat and dysfunctional.”

She said she entered politics to stand up for society's underdogs and speak up for the voiceless and those who don't vote.

“People need to know their lives matter,” Mark said. “We need to be less partisan and have the guts to do the right things.”

But she said she often ran headlong into bureaucracy that was resistant to change, especially when those bureaucrats encountered a person with an Indigenous perspective.

“It’s also a fact institutions fundamentally resist change,” Mark said. “They are allergic to doing things differently, particularly institutions like the legislative assembly and government at large.”

Mark, 47, said she is the first person in her family to graduate from high school and the first to receive a post-secondary education.