Allison Brewer

Allison Brewer (born July 15, 1954 in Fredericton, New Brunswick) is a Canadian social activist and politician, and the former leader of the New Brunswick New Democratic Party. She has been particularly active in areas of lesbian and gay rights and access to abortion. She is openly lesbian.

She was the founder and longtime director of Dr. Henry Morgentaler's abortion clinic in Fredericton, New Brunswick before moving to Nunavut in 2000. In Nunavut, she continued her activism organizing gay pride events and lobbying for the passage of the Nunavut Human Rights Act.

A prominent member of Egale Canada, she was one of its two representatives to the United Nations Conference on Women in 1995. At the event, which was held in Beijing, she was briefly detained by Chinese officials for displaying a banner which read Lesbian rights are human rights.

In 2004, she was one of seven recipients of the Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case.

Brewer returned to her native New Brunswick in late 2004 and on May 14 of the following year announced her candidacy for the leadership of the New Brunswick New Democratic Party. On June 23, 2005, the final day for candidates to register, she briefly became the leader-presumptive as the only candidate, however the party extended the deadline to July 12 with her consent and two other candidates entered the race. Brewer went on to win the leadership on September 25, 2005, at a convention in Fredericton, becoming the first openly gay leader of a provincial party.

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