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Stewart was first elected to Parliament in the 1993 election. She was a close friend of Prime Minister Jean Chretien and was soon appointed to the important position of Minister of Indian Affairs. In 1999 she was moved to the mega-ministry HRDC. Stewart was widely viewed to have leadership ambitions, and was closely supported by Chretien.
These ambitions were put to an end by the so called "billion dollar boondoggle" where poor accounting practices at HRDC left millions of dollars unaccounted for. While the problems at HRDC were almost completely during the time that Pierre Pettigrew was minister Stewart took the brunt of the attack and was considered to have not handled the scandal very well. Despite this she did not resign, and Chretien stood by her throughout.
She remained minister in charge of HRDC until Paul Martin became Prime Minister on December 12, 2003. She was moved to the backbenches both because of the continued taint of scandal and her position as a loyalist to the ousted Chretien. She retired from politics on February 13, 2004 to become a United Nations International Labour Organization member.
Stewart is from a long line of politicians. Her father Robert Nixon was leader of the Liberal Party of Ontario while her grandfather was Ontario premier Harry Nixon.