MPP Bhutila Karpoche
It all started when…
Bhutila Karpoche is the Member of Provincial Parliament for Parkdale—High Park. In June 2018, Bhutila made history by becoming the first person of Tibetan heritage to be elected to public office in North America.
Bhutila is active on issues around social justice and public health. She is a longtime advocate of affordable housing, workers’ rights, and public healthcare.
An epidemiologist by training, Bhutila is a public health researcher focusing on the social determinants of health. Most recently, she co-authored the report “A public health crisis in the making: The health impacts of precarious work on racialized refugee and immigrant women."
Bhutila holds degrees from the University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto and is a PhD candidate in public health policy at Ryerson University, where she received the RBC Immigrant, Diversity, and Inclusion Project Award.
Bhutila has presented at many academic conferences and is the recipient of numerous awards including the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. She was voted Toronto's Best Local Politician by Toronto Star Readers (2019) and Toronto's Best MPP by NOW Magazine readers (2019 and 2020).
ABOUT BHUTILA
I’ve always been interested in the health of people and communities. As I pursued my education, I quickly recognized that the structural and social determinants play a much greater role than individual behaviour and that people’s health conditions are shaped by the resources and opportunities they have. While I specialized in Epidemiology in my public health degree, I also explored policy in my training because I was attracted to its potency. I knew I wanted to play a role in shaping policy and developing upstream approaches to keeping people and communities healthy.
Being a Tibetan born and raised in exile, I knew at an early age that the personal is always political. I always understood that making changes to people’s lives meant getting involved politically, whatever that may look like. After over a decade in organizing, I decided to run for public office. It felt like a natural next step and was the space where I could combine my passions, my skills, and my experience to make a difference. On June 8, 2018 I was honoured to be elected decisively as the Member of Provincial Parliament for Parkdale—High Park in Toronto, Canada.
It is said that I made history by becoming the first Tibetan to be elected into public office in North America, but the way I see it, our community made history, not me. No one does it alone, and I couldn’t have done it without the support of my community.
