Dipika Damerla

Damerla was born in a Telugu family in Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh (present day Telangana), India. After emigrating to Canada she earned her MBA from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. She worked in corporate banking at the Royal Bank of Canada and the Bank of Nova Scotia. Prior to her first election to the Ontario Legislature she was Senior Policy Advisor to Ontario's Minister of Economic Development and Trade. She lives in Mississauga with her daughter, Sharmeila.^[5]

Damerla is a member of the Ontario Liberal Party. She won a tough 2011 nomination race to be the Liberal candidate for Mississauga East—Cooksville, beating Nancy Fonseca (the sister of previous Mississauga East—Cooksville MPP Peter Fonseca).^[6] She beat her nearest rival, Progressive Conservative Zoran Churchin by 4,238 votes in the 2011 provincial election.^[7][8]

In November 2011, she was appointed as Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Infrastructure.^[9] In April 2012, Damerla introduced a resolution to reform the 1998 Condominium Act. Her resolution would help facilitate disputes between condominium boards and owners. She said that the current system is long and costly. She said, "the act provided a dispute resolution process which was right for that time and the place. However, 14 years later, times have changed. Our province is a very different place now." The resolution passed first reading in June.^[10]

She was re-elected in the 2014 provincial election.^[11]

In June 2014, Damerla was appointed as an Associate Minister (minister without portfolio) for the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care focusing on long-term care.^[12] She then succeeded Mario Sergio as Minister responsible for Seniors Affairs, another minister without portfolio position, in a June 13, 2016 cabinet shuffle.^{[citation needed]}

Damerla was appointed Minister of Seniors Affairs, leading a new standalone ministry created from the former Ontario Seniors' Secretariat, on January 12, 2017.^[13]

In the 2018 provincial election, Damerla was defeated in Mississauga East—Cooksville by Progressive Conservative candidate Kaleed Rasheed by a margin of 4739 votes.^[14][15]

Damerla was an early endorser of Steven Del Duca's 2019-20 leadership bid, co-hosting his campaign's first event targeting former Queen's Park staffers with fellow former MPP Han Dong. She contested her former provincial seat again in 2022, closing the gap from 11% to 3.5% (1206 votes margin) but losing again to Rasheed, by then a cabinet minister.

Following her defeat in the 2018 provincial election, Damerla ran as a candidate to replace long-time Ward 7 Mississauga City Councillor Nando Iannica in the 2018 Mississauga municipal election,^[16] winning easily with 41% of the vote to the runner-up's 16% and became the first new councillor for Ward 7 in over 30 years.^[2] Despite her provincial loss in June 2022, she was re-elected easily later that year with 55% of the vote.

Damerla was one of the four sitting councillors who contested the 2024 mayoral by-election to replace Bonnie Crombie, who resigned after being elected leader of the Ontario Liberal Party in December 2023. Despite polls showing her as a close challenging to frontrunner and eventual winner Carolyn Parrish, Damerla finished third with 19% behind fellow councillor Alvin Tedjo.