PROFILE: Nelly Shin | Conservative

After gettig shuffled out of her riding of Richmond Hill, Ont., Shin is looking to bolster the Conservative vote in her new riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam.

This will be her first run at political office.

Who is Nelly Shin?

The former teacher, missionary and musician is campaigning as a person who listens and says her anti-abortion views won’t be tested in parliament

Website: conservative.ca/team-member/nelly-shin/

Facebook: facebook.com/nellyshin.ca/

Nelly Shin In Profile

Musician, composer, singer are not among the the usual professions for would-be Canadian MPs but could be if Conservative candidate Nelly Shin wins her bid for the Port Moody-Coquitlam riding.

Shin, 47, has been described by some as a parachute candidate — she was previously tapped to run in an Ontario riding but moved here when her party chose another candidate there — and has taken heat for appearing at a meeting organized by the anti-abortion group RightNow.

But Shin said she has worked hard to be a candidate in the Tri-Cities, and while describing herself as “pro-life” she said her views on women’s reproductive rights won’t be tested in parliament because Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer has said he won’t open up the abortion debate or allow anyone else to do so in a private member’s bill.

As for gay marriage, “that’s a law that’s passed, the world has moved on and we all need to move on.

“We’re a big-tent party," she told The Tri-City News. "Not everybody will have the same views, and that’s the view of democracy. What it comes right down to is honouring and respecting all people."

With varied life experience as a high school music and English teacher with the Toronto school board, helping people struggling with self-esteem and depression through church-based missionary work in the U.S. and as a freelance musician, singer and composer (her pieces are produced under the name Eden’s Rose and she has a gospel song on YouTube), Shin says her life history is a mix that enables her to relate to people in the riding. She also comes from an immigrant family that moved to Canada from South Korea in 1977 and started a successful floral business.

It was in 2015, when the election swept the Liberals to power, ousting then Conservative MP Costas Menegakis from his job, that Shin decided to take on a greater role in politics. She moved back to Richmond Hill, Ont. from Vancouver Island, which was her home base for three years, to be with family and began signing up Conservative members.

“I wanted to help rebuild the party from the local perspective,” Shin said.

She had planned to run in Ontario but when a Liberal defection scrapped that, she gave up her riding to Menegakis and looked for somewhere else to run.

“I knew [running outside her home province] would be a perceived handicap," she said. "I had to do some soul searching.”

The proximity of mountains and the ocean drew her back to B.C., and motivated by her desire help make “Canadians prosper and find more personal freedom through good law making,” she threw her hat in the ring.

Shin said she believes the Conservative plan to cut the lowest income tax bracket from 15% to 13.75% is the right approach along with tax credits for children's sports, fitness and arts programs, a review of the mortgage stress test, cuts to GST on home heating bills, more tax relief for seniors and a plan to provide tax breaks for transit to promote more eco-friendly transportation are good strategies for helping people.

“I really want to champion families,” she said.

Nelly Shin in 3 minutes