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Korean Canadian woman vies for House seat

September 15, 2015
Grace Seear

Grace Seear

Grace Seear, a 35-year-old Korean Canadian from Burnaby South near Vancouver, has her eyes on a seat in Parliament.

A Conservative Party member, Seear — whose Korean name is Cho Eun-ae — is a political staffer and mother of two.

If elected in the Oct. 19 general election, she would become the first Korean Canadian female to hold a seat in the House of Commons.

The Canadian Senate currently has one Korean female, Yonah Martin, a Conservative who has held the seat since 2009.

Seear previously worked as Martin’s chief aide.

“I want to become a public servant who contributes to society and who is like a daughter to the Korean community,” Seear said. “Working under Senator Martin, I opened my eyes to what it is to help others and what national politics can be. The House needs a Korean voice.”

Her district is home to approximately 74,000 voters, many of them immigrants and 30 percent of them Chinese Canadians.

Seear was born in Korea and immigrated to Toronto with her father, a minister, in 1992 when she was in sixth grade. After moving to Vancouver, she attended Simon Fraser University for English and earned a teaching certification there.