MELISSA LANTSMAN

A former political staffer first elected in the 2021 federal election, Melissa Lantsman quickly became “one of the go-to people” the party turns to in question period, the Toronto Sun’s Brian Lilley said in introducing Lantsman to a Full Comment podcast last year.

She’s had a foot in the door of politics dating back to high school. In 2022, Pierre Poilievre appointed her one of two deputy leaders of the Conservative Party. As a longtime conservative, she’s always believed in “smaller government, less government, less intrusion, more responsibility,” Lantsman told Lilley.

She’s openly gay, a descriptor often used by media that she finds “lazy, frankly,” she told The Jerusalem Post. “If you were to ask me, I’d tell you that I check a lot of boxes,” Lantsman 39, said. “I’m young, successful, I was a female executive. I’m a Zionist. I’m the child of immigrants.” (Her parents immigrated to Canada via Israel from what was then the former Soviet Union in the 1970s.) She’s fluent in English, French and Russian. “I’m happy to take on Justin Trudeau any day of the week. Those are the descriptors I think they could use.”

A former regular TV commentator and talk radio host, Lantsman has worked or volunteered for Conservative campaigns since before she was a teenager. She once served as director of communications for former prime minister Stephen Harper and was chief spokeswoman for Doug Ford’s 2018 election campaign.

When her Thornhill constituency office was plastered with hateful, anti-israel messages, Lantsman vowed she wouldn’t be silenced with intimidation. “The mobs won’t win,” she told the Toronto Sun.