Former cabinet minister, scientist and champion for safe sport Kirsty Duncan has died at the age of 59.
Duncan had made public her multiple operations, radiation and chemotherapy to treat her cancer since she was diagnosed in 2023.
Born on Oct. 31, 1966, Duncan was elected five times as the Liberal MP for the Toronto riding of Etobicoke North between 2008 and 2025. She opted not to be on the ballot again when the federal election was called last year.
Tributes to Duncan flowed Monday after news of her death.
“I was deeply saddened to hear of the passing of my friend Kirsty Duncan, a devoted public servant and a champion for the people of Etobicoke North,” wrote Ontario Premier Doug Ford on social media.
“She served our community with dedication and conviction. My thoughts and prayers are with her family and loved ones.”
Making a public statement at a news conference in Toronto Monday, Ford said Duncan was a friend and a “wonderful, wonderful person.”
“People don’t know this, but our family had a rule: we’d never run against Kirsty,” said Ford, who represent an Etobicoke riding provincially in Ontario.
Members of Parliament held a moment of silence in Duncan’s honour Monday afternoon, after Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux announced her death on the floor of the House of Commons.
Deputy Speaker John Nater said all parliamentarians send their condolences to Duncan’s family.
“Those of us who had the privilege of serving with her … will never forget her hard work, her courage, her compassion, and above all, her kindness,” he said.
Former prime minister Justin Trudeau described Duncan as curious, generous, and deeply committed to helping others.
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“She believed in knowledge, compassion, and service, and she brought those values into every conversation and every fight she took on. I learned a great deal from her, and I was lucky to call her a friend,” Trudeau posted on social media.
Duncan served in cabinet between 2015 and 2019 as the minister of science, and from 2018 to 2019 she also was the minister of sport. For a brief period in 2018 she also held the role as minister for persons with disabilities.
After the 2019 election, she became the deputy government House leader, a role she held until 2021.
She took a medical leave on Jan. 26, 2023, but continued to serve as MP.
While she served in the sport portfolio for less than two years, Duncan made safe sport her priority both during her time as sports minister and afterward.
During an appearance before a Heritage committee hearing on safe sport on June 15, 2023 in Ottawa, she called on MPs to eliminate abuse from sport.
“We must do everything in our power to address the many, many years of abuse, and entrenchment of that abuse — emotional, physical, psychological, sexual and verbal abuse,” Duncan told the committee as she called for a national inquiry.
“If Canada gets it right, we can better protect our athletes,” she said.
During her time as sports minister, Duncan established a national toll-free confidential helpline for victims and witnesses of abuse in sport.
She also announced the federal government would draft a code of conduct for sport in Canada and introduce a gender equity secretariat to address abuse, harassment and discrimination in sport.
In 2019, the federal budget committed $30 million over a five-year period to support safe sports, but her ministry was then folded into the Heritage department.
A dedicated sports minister wasn’t assigned again until Pascale St-Onge took up the post in October 2021.
Duncan was a lifelong athlete. She was a competitive gymnast as a child, and later in life, a devoted runner. She ran the Boston Marathon multiple times as an adult and also competed in half-Ironman triathlons.
She was a coach, a dance teacher and an athletics judge throughout her life, advocating for physical fitness and working to end what she once called “the darker side of sport.”
Duncan spoke publicly about the constant pressure to achieve and maintain a low weight when she was a child gymnast.
Duncan came to politics with a science background.
A graduate of Kipling Collegiate Institute, she studied geography and anthropology at the University of Toronto.
She earned her geography doctorate at the University of Edinburgh.
Duncan taught meteorology, climatology and climate change at the University of Windsor from 1993 to 2000.
In 2003 she published “Hunting the 1918 Flu: One Scientist’s Search for a Killer Virus,” based on the expedition she undertook to research the origins of the Spanish flu virus.
She served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won a Nobel Prize in 2007.
As science minister, she appointed a national chief scientific adviser.
Duncan said in an interview her government “unmuzzled our scientists” and that she brought back the long-form census “because you need evidence to make good decisions.”
Duncan spoke of her cancer treatment at the Heritage committee hearing in June 2023.
“To those living with cancer, know that you’re not alone and I stand with you,” she said.
“I am grateful for the life-saving medicine, science and compassionate and excellent care of our health-care professionals.”
