Shelley Dawn Marie Martel (born April 8, 1963) is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. She was a New Democratic member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1987 to 2007. She represented the ridings of Sudbury East and Nickel Belt. She was a cabinet minister in the government of Bob Rae. Background Martel was born in Sudbury, Ontario, the second of four children. Her father is Elie Martel, who was a long time NDP member of the Ontario legislature. Her mother is the daughter of another area politician, Norman Fawcett, who served as mayor of Capreol, and as Nickel Belt's federal MP from 1965 to 1968. She studied International Politics at the University of Toronto and French at the Sorbonne. She then worked as a claims adjudicator with the Ontario Workers' Compensation Board. Martel and former Ontario NDP leader Howard Hampton were married in 1994, and have two children, Sarah and Jonathan. Both were members of cabinet in the Bob Rae government at that time. Her daughter, Sarah served as a legislative page in 2007. Martel herself was a page when her father was serving in the Legislature. In 2003, both Martel and Hampton supported Bill Blaikie's campaign to become leader of the federal New Democratic Party. She lives in Toronto, Ontario. Politics In 1987 at age 24, Martel was elected as the New Democratic Party candidate in the riding of Sudbury East defeating Liberal opponent Claude Mayer by 6,005 votes. She was named as the party's critic for culture and francophone affairs. She was re-elected in the 1990 provincial election, in which the NDP won a majority government. In cabinet On October 1, 1990, Martel was named Minister of Northern Development and Government House Leader in the cabinet of Bob Rae. On July 31, 1991 Rae performed a minor cabinet shuffle. Martel's portfolio was enhanced when she took over Mines from Gilles Pouliot to become the Minister of Northern Development and Mines but she lost her position as Government House Leader to Dave Cooke. In June 1991, she became involved in a minor controversy when she and fellow cabinet minister Anne Swarbrick wrote letters to the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons asking for the suspension of the licence of a physician who had been convicted of sexually assaulting four teenage female patients. Since the letters violated conflict of interest guidelines she and Swarbrick offered their resignations from