- Office
- MLA for Langley, 2005 to 2020 (elected 2005, 2009, 2013, 2017)
- Party
- BC Liberal
- Cabinet
- Healthy Living and Sport; Children and Family Development; Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation; Transportation and Infrastructure; Environment; Health
- Langley connection
- Lived in the Willoughby area, per her 2005 to 2009 Legislature biography
- How it ended
- Defeated in the October 2020 election
- Last checked
- October 23, 2026
Six portfolios in nine years is a lot of desk-clearing. Mary Polak represented the Langley riding for fifteen years and spent most of the stretch from 2008 to 2017 in cabinet, moving through social, natural resource and health files. Her Legislative Assembly biography from her first term notes she lived in the Willoughby area.
Before the Legislature
Polak came to provincial politics from school boards. The Legislature’s member biographies say she was a trustee and later chair of the Surrey School Board, and worked as director of operations for a small polling and research firm. During her nine years in local government she chaired the Council of British Columbia School Districts in the mid-1990s and joined the board of the BC School Trustees Association in 2003. Her biography credits her with two Surrey firsts as chair: the first BC district to balance its books under generally accepted accounting principles, and the first to publish school-by-school results for both elementary and secondary schools.
In office
She won Langley in 2005 and held it through the 2009, 2013 and 2017 elections. Wikipedia’s results tables put her share at just over 52 per cent in 2005 and above 56 per cent in 2009.
Her roles, with dates from the Legislative Library’s cabinet lists:
| From | To | Role |
|---|---|---|
| December 2006 | 2008 | Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health for the Conversation on Health (per the Legislature biography) |
| June 23, 2008 | June 10, 2009 | Minister of Healthy Living and Sport |
| June 10, 2009 | March 14, 2011 | Minister of Children and Family Development (and Minister Responsible for Child Care to October 2010) |
| March 14, 2011 | September 5, 2012 | Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation |
| September 5, 2012 | June 10, 2013 | Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure |
| June 10, 2013 | June 12, 2017 | Minister of Environment |
| June 12, 2017 | July 18, 2017 | Minister of Health |
The Legislature’s biographies also list her as vice-chair of the cabinet’s Environment and Land Use Committee and a member of the cabinet working group on liquefied natural gas while she was environment minister. Earlier she sat on the Select Standing Committees on Children and Youth, Education and Public Accounts, and on the special committee that reviewed the Personal Information Protection Act.
After the government changed in July 2017, she became Official Opposition House Leader and sat on the special committee to appoint an Information and Privacy Commissioner, according to her 41st Parliament biography.
How it ended
In the October 2020 election, Global News projected that the NDP’s Andrew Mercier, who grew up in the riding, had defeated her. The same report noted she had won four straight elections and held several cabinet posts under premiers Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark.
Related pages
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Last checked October 22, 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.
