Leading from the Heart: The Battles of a Feminist, Union Leader and Politician

In this rich and inspiring memoir, Judy Darcy recounts the remarkable turns that brought her from library worker to president of Canada’s largest labour union, and from there to groundbreaking legislator focused on many of our most pressing issues, including health care, the rights of immigrant workers and the toxic-drug crisis.

As this rich memoir shows, the life of activist, union leader and legislator Judy Darcy mirrors many of the great social and political currents of the modern era. Opening in the charged atmosphere of the feminist movement in the late 1960s, when the twenty-year-old Darcy—swept up by the promise of historic, liberating change—infiltrates a beauty pageant and later disrupts Parliament over reproductive rights, the story then reaches back to her earliest years as the daughter of immigrants deeply scarred by World War II.

In this tale of personal trauma and desire for justice, Darcy recounts the remarkable turns that brought her from library clerical worker to leading public figure. Her rise through the ranks of the country’s largest union—the Canadian Union of Public Employees, with several hundred thousand members—culminates in her 1991 election as national president, a traditionally male-dominated role. Years later, after moving from Ontario to British Columbia, she is elected to public office, becoming an NDP MLA. Here, as the only North American minister of mental health and addictions, she confronted the ravages of the toxic-drug crisis, working to help some of society’s most vulnerable.

Throughout the tumultuous events of her career and personal life, Darcy is forever working for those on the margins, fighting to protect workers’ rights, water rights, health care, childcare and reproductive choice, and helping secure a landmark Supreme Court decision in favour of same-sex partner pensions. Powered by intense conviction and intimately personal experience, her candid story offers a vision of a new kind of leadership, steeped in compassion and able to negotiate the most urgent and complex challenges of our fractured era.

“These troubled times cry out for stories of courage, hope and determination—and Judy Darcy delivers on all counts. The heart she leads with is filled with passion and principles. Join her on her journey from student radical to path-breaking union leader and then progressive cabinet minister, becoming the leader who can inspire all of us.”

“Where did Judy Darcy find her courage and compassion to seek justice and serve those most in need of support? What fuelled her conviction? Leading from the Heart is ultimately a powerful journey of self-discovery—one that shows us how our own lived experiences can be a transformative tool in our work for change.”

“Leading from the Heart recounts the remarkable story of a young woman who leaves a family home of ‘never-ending conflict’ to immerse herself in the endless striving for a just society. Etched with deep honesty and personal revelation, adorned with many telling anecdotes, laced with abundant historical and political detail, this book is both a fascinating personal memoir and an account of a memorable era of struggle with many indelible achievements and many glorious failures, one whose ideals will long shine before us.”

“A beautiful intersection of personal, political, labour and social activist history within a narrative of what it means to lead, care and make change. Darcy’s deeply engaging book will surprise you at every turn.”

“Judy Darcy’s life memoir is a personal landscape of trade unionism, feminism and progressive politics indelibly intertwined written with such ease, such rollicking humour, such a torrent of anecdotal pageantry. She is a good friend, and I thought I knew all of her attributes. But I didn’t know of her sublime gift of writing, with such insight and discernment. Laughter, pain, melancholy, joy, shock, tears… a tsunami of emotion. I couldn’t put it down.”