Niki Sharma, Artsci’01, understood the significance of community from an early age. While her first job as a newspaper carrier helped her develop a strong work ethic, the conversations on people’s doorsteps in Sparwood, B.C., followed her in life and always compelled her to seek a community wherever she went. First elected to the B.C. legislature in 2020 as a New Democrat, she made history two years later as the first South Asian Canadian woman to serve as the province’s attorney general. Following the October 2024 election, she added the role of deputy premier.
My first paying job was a paper route that I started when I was nine years old. I grew up in a very small town of about 3,000 to 4,000 people and I delivered the Vancouver Sun. We were kind of a paper-route family: I had three sisters and we all had routes. It was every afternoon and then Sundays, too, so it was seven days a week, that job.
The biggest thing that I took away from delivering newspapers is that you’re part of the community. Actually, one of my routes included some seniors’ housing and that was really interesting because they would be really chatty: I’d stop and drop the paper off and they’d open the door and tell me about their day and we would have long conversations. They would also take me to their gardens and show me what they were growing and give me stuff to take home. And when I delivered the paper the day after Halloween, I would get bags of leftover candy they didn’t give out. There was one lady who couldn’t walk her dog because she was getting older, so I would take the dog for a walk. It was all very lovely and really sweet, when I think about it.
I think I made $50 a month or something like that. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was a long time ago and I was pretty happy with it. I had to collect from the houses, pay the bill for the month, and whatever was left over was mine. And some people would tip me and I remember being pretty happy about that. But I also used to have some people who didn’t pay, so I was this shy little kid trying to figure out how I’m going to collect money from somebody who I know is home but isn’t answering the door.
Although my career path was kind of all over the place, the lessons from that paper route about being connected with the community have stayed with me to this day. Plus, I had parents who were always volunteering, so they also taught me the importance of being present in your community. No matter where I went or what I did, I needed to be part of the community somehow, usually through volunteering. When I was at Queen’s, I focused more on the environment; later, in law school, I worked supporting refugees.
We finished an election in B.C. not that long ago and I was reflecting on the campaign as an incumbent politician. I knocked on lots of doors. While it’s kind of true that I’ve been going door to door since I was young, it’s different now. Sometimes people have passions they want to share with you and other times you have really difficult conversations. I really never imagined entering politics early in my life, but when I did it was definitely about the community connection.
