OTTAWA—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promoted first-time Burlington MP Karina Gould to cabinet, tasking her with delivering on the Liberals’ troubled promise to reform Canada’s elections.

Gould was one of three rookie MPs elevated to cabinet Tuesday, replacing Peterborough MP Maryam Monsef as Minister of Democratic Institutions.

In that role, Gould will have the unenviable task of figuring out how to make good on Trudeau’s pledge to replace Canada’s 150-year old first-past-the-post electoral system.

It’s a mission that Gould believes in, at least.

“Electoral reform is the next step in (an) evolution toward a more inclusive system. We can build a better system that provides a stronger link between the democratic will of Canadians and the election results,” Gould said in the House of Commons last June.

“Parliamentarians will need to set aside partisan interests and engage in a thoughtful and substantive dialogue with each other and with citizens.”

Speaking to reporters outside the Commons Tuesday afternoon, Gould said she was only a few short hours into her new position and would need time before commenting on “next steps.”

“We’ve had a year of consultations. We’ve had a year of engaging with Canadians,” Gould said.

“I really do believe we can get the best system for Canadians and understand where we need to go moving forward, and I’m really looking forward to doing that work.”

Born in Burlington, 29-year old Gould studied politics at McGill University and at Oxford University from 2011 to 2013. According to Oxford professor Richard Caplan, Gould’s masters thesis focused on development in Haiti and the motives of different countries in driving that development.

Her official bio stated Gould’s interest in international development stemmed from a year volunteering at an orphanage in Mexico.

Gould narrowly defeated incumbent Mike Wallace in the 2015 election, ending almost a decade of Conservative control of the Burlington riding.

Eleanor McMahon, the Ontario tourism minister and Burlington MPP who helped out with Gould’s campaign, praised the young politician as wise beyond her years.

“She’s a delightful young woman, incredibly competent. She’ll hate me for saying this, but I often draw distinctions about her age, if only because I look on her level of competency, how self-possessed she is . . . and I think to be someone of her age and capability is impressive,” McMahon told the Star Tuesday.

“She’s enormously thoughtful, thoughtful both from the perspective of being a kind-hearted person, but also thoughtful in the way she thinks through issues, in the way that she processes information and makes decisions. She’s not a precipitous decision-maker — she thinks things through.”

Gould will need those talents if she’s to successfully navigate the electoral reform file, which has become a bit of a minefield for the Liberals.

In the last federal campaign, Trudeau promised that 2015 would be the last election under first-past-the-post, which allows parties to form majority governments with less than 50 per cent of the popular vote.

For months after winning a majority with less than 40 per cent of the vote, however, the Liberals seemed to be stalling on the file. Monsef bore the brunt of opposition criticism, facing accusations of “ragging the puck.”

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The issue boiled over in December when Monsef accused a committee, which included Liberal colleagues, of failing to do their job and was accused of outright lying in the House of Commons.

Gould will have to mend those fences and introduce legislation within three or four months of assuming her cabinet posting — the deadline Elections Canada has set for adopting a new electoral system in time for the 2019 election.

With files from Alex Ballingall

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