About

Matt is the Member of Parliament representing Edmonton Riverbend and currently the Shadow Minister for Supply Chains.
He has been a strong advocate for both compassionate care and mental health supports, even launching a foundation in 2022, Hi Dad Foundation, in support of raising awareness for mental health in young men and dads. This was an extension of his work as founder of Father’s Day on the Hill, an annual event on Parliament Hill.
Matt is a former Member of the Legislative Assembly and the youngest government provincial politician prior to May 2015.
He’s only the 2nd elected official to pass private members’ legislation in both a provincial legislature and the House of Commons, when he passed Compassionate Bereavement Leave in 2021. This law now doubles the leave of an individual when facing the death of a loved one.
As an MLA, Matt passed a private members’ bill entitled Compassionate Care Leave Legislation, the first of its kind in the history of Alberta. The law now provides a leave of absence for an employee from their employer while taking care of a terminally ill loved one.
Furthermore, he also had two of his motions pass unanimously in the Alberta Legislature Chamber:
• provide support for playgrounds when new schools are built in the province of Alberta.
• urging the provincial government to conduct a review of the childcare policy in the province that increases availability of spaces.
In his community, Matt has fought hard for:
• Pushing for multi-jurisdictional funding for the Terwillegar Drive expansion.
• Building the 41st Avenue interchange by utilizing unique funding from the Trade corridor fund.
• Relentlessly pushing for schools in our growing communities in; resulted in 8 new schools in Southwest Edmonton.
• Worked with Edmonton Police Services and Edmonton Fire Services to enhance their presence in our communities, including overseeing new fire hall in Rutherford and the new Windermere police station.
• Enhancing the river valley network to expand trails from Windermere to the Valley zoo.
As a federal MP, Matt has served in a variety of leadership capacities starting with Opposition Critic for Western Economic Diversification. In that capacity, he became a vocal advocate of converting orphan wells across Alberta into geothermal production sites to diversify Alberta’s economy, get oil workers back on the job and to increase Canada’s renewable energy output. In February 2017, he tabled Motion 122 in support of this initiative. He then went on to Chair the Alberta Jobs Taskforce, an initiative to raise the alarm at the rising unemployment rate in Alberta.
Matt was also appointed as the youngest member in Andrew Scheer’s shadow cabinet, as the Shadow Minister of Science, then the Shadow Minister of Innovation, Science & Economic Development. In September of 2018, Matt assumed the role of Shadow Minister of Infrastructure, Communities & Urban Affairs. In these roles, Matt continued his work on enhancing support for infrastructure in communities, research and science alongside Canada’s world class researchers, promotion for enhanced open access policies for federal dollars and strong private/public investment in Canada’s innovation sector.
In January 2020, Matt was named the Shadow Minister of Health. In this role, Matt worked with Canada’s health stakeholders on pertinent files, including COVID-19, Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) and national pharmacare. He was also the vice-chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health. Matt was the official opposition Health critic at the outset of Covid-19 and raised alarms early on the government’s lack of awareness about border closures, long term care home and rapid testing.
Matt was then appointed Shadow Minister of Housing, Diversity and Inclusion in which he pushed the government for better action when it came to the rapidly rising housing costs in Canada.
Additionally, Matt has taken a leading role in advocating for:
• Support for Mental Health initiatives with a particular focus on addressing the stigma of mental health in young men, through his annual Father’s Day awareness event in Ottawa;
• Increased advocacy for young girls involvement in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) related fields of study and work by co-sponsoring an event with LEGO on Parliament Hill to raise awareness;
• Eradication of polio by sponsoring the largest petition polio in the history of Canada to increase awareness of the countries and jurisdictions where polio is still rampant;
• Vice-Chair of Canada-United Kingdom Parliamentary group in which he has spearheaded the efforts to reconcile British Pensioners living here in Canada;
• Named Best Constituency MP and Top Up-and-Comer by his Parliamentary colleagues in 2016 and 2017.
Matt is a graduate of the University of Alberta and recently obtained his Public Leadership Credential at Harvard University. He continues to live in the community he was raised, and where he now raises his two daughters, Molly and Lily, and son Hugh.