Sherry Wilson

Wilson grew up on a dairy farm in Intervale, New Brunswick and attended schools in Petitcodiac. She is one of nine children. Following high school, she completed a business and secretarial course at Campbellton Community College.^[1]

After college she began working at Hub Meat Packers in Moncton where she was Credit Manager Assistant and after moving to Edmonton, Alberta, she worked at the University Hospital in administration. After two years in Alberta, she moved back to New Brunswick, settling in Riverview, where she bought her own business in 1984.^[1]

Wilson also volunteered for the RCMP from 1991 to 1999 as Victim Services Coordinator. In 2002 and 2003, she was the president of the Downtown Riverview Business Association and in 2004 she was elected to Riverview Town Council and was re-elected in 2008. She sat on the Codiac Regional Policing Authority Board, the Immigration Board, and the Finn report committee, among other committees and boards, and served as deputy mayor in 2005.^[1]

Wilson ran for a seat to the New Brunswick Legislature in the 2010 provincial election. She stood as a Progressive Conservative candidate in the electoral district of Petitcodiac. She defeated Wally Stiles, a former cabinet minister who crossed the floor from the Progressive Conservatives to the Liberals in 2007, to take back the seat for her party. After the Petitcodiac electoral district was abolished in the 2013 electoral redistribution, Wilson ran and was re-elected in the newly created district of Moncton Southwest in the 2014 provincial election. She was re-elected again in the 2018 and 2020 provincial elections.

On November 9, 2018, she was sworn-in as Minister of Service New Brunswick and Minister responsible for Women's Equality, in the Progressive Conservative government of Premier Blaine Higgs.^[1] On June 27, 2023, she was sworn-in as the Minister responsible for Addictions and Mental Health Services.

As a result of the 2021 electoral redistribution, Wilson is running in the 2024 provincial election in the Albert-Riverview electoral district.^[2]

On September 30, 2024, Wilson released a National Day for Truth and Reconciliation statement on her campaign page in which she compared residential schools to the parental rights movement, specifically making a comparison to the original version of Policy 713. Her statement received criticism from opposition parties, with several indigenous peoples also calling for her withdrawal as a candidate for the party,^[2][3] including by Pabineau First Nation Chief Terry Richardson as well as by the six Wolastoqey Nation chiefs, who released a statement reading: "That she would try to draw this dog-whistle comparison on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation should make every New Brunswicker ashamed that she was recently a minister for this province in the Higgs government."^[4]