Now into their third week as officially-sworn in members of Canada’s 45th Parliament, newly elected Conservative MPs Tamara Kronis and Roman Baber are getting used to their new seats in the backbenches of the House of Commons. They have plenty in common: both trained as lawyers, grew up in Toronto, and, in the 2025 federal election, managed to flip their ridings blue for the first time in a decade.
And on top of all that, both are the offspring of Jewish immigrant families, although Baber’s Canadian passport is much more recent.
This is Kronis’s first time in political office, although she ran unsuccessfully for the Tories in the same Vancouver Island riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith in the 2021 election. She comes from a prominent Conservative political family: her late father, Jules, was a party operative dating back to the days of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker.
Roman Baber represented the heavily Jewish Toronto riding of York Centre provincially from 2018 to 2022, during the first Doug Ford government in Ontario. Before throwing his hat into the ring federally, he ran unsuccessfully for the federal Conservative leadership, losing to his current boss, Pierre Poilievre.
With Parliament having resumed May 26, these two newcomers have been learning the ropes of their new roles while navigating some historic moments. They met King Charles during his recent visit and dove headfirst into speaking up about housing affordability, the national drug-overdose crisis and important Jewish issues including antisemitism and the recent desecration of the national Holocaust monument.
On today’s episode of North Star (formerly The CJN Daily), Tamara Kronis and Roman Baber join to share what their first whirlwind weeks have been like.
Related links
- Hear more about Roman Baber’s political career, including running for the leadership of the federal Conservative party in the election which Pierre Poilievre ultimately won.
- Hear Tamara Kronis explaining the International Court of Justice’s 2024 hearing brought by South Africa against Israel for genocide.
- Recapping the 2025 federal election and its implications for Jewish politicians.
Credits
- Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
- Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
- Music: Bret Higgins
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