Jon Reyes

Prior to becoming a politician, Reyes served in the Canadian Forces for a combined 10 years in both the Communication Reserves and the regular force with the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN). As a reservist, he was awarded the Special Service Medal (NATO) while serving in Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Lahr, Germany in 1993. He would serve in the RCN till 2000 as a Naval Combat Information Operator and then as an instructor at Canadian Forces Fleet School Pacific at CFB Esquimalt.

After his military career, Reyes would then go on to pursue his Bachelor of Commerce in Entrepreneurial Management at Royal Roads University in Victoria, British Columbia. After a brief career as a civil servant in the Federal government, Reyes would use his education by going into business. Along with his wife Cynthia, they had owned and operated 2 small businesses for 16 years.

Reyes was also the founder and first President of the Manitoba Filipino Business Council (MFBC) that was established in 2010. He stepped down as president in January 2015.

Reyes was named to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Commanding Officer's Cultural Diversity Advisory Committee in the fall of 2015.

Reyes defeated incumbent NDP MLA Dave Gaudreau in the 2016 provincial election, and became MLA for the constituency of St. Norbert. He is the first Canadian born candidate of Filipino descent elected as a Member of the Legislative Assembly in Manitoba.

Reyes was appointed as the Special Envoy for Military Affairs (SEMA) by Premier Brian Pallister, on May 3, 2016 and remains in that role.

On May 10, 2017, Reyes was also named to the Fiscal Responsibility Committee of Cabinet, a committee tasked to examine priority matters of the Government of Manitoba related to fiscal and budgetary responsibility, which included strategic transformation priorities, providing oversight for key transformation projects identified in the Fiscal Performance Review and assuming responsibility for other strategic initiatives as directed by Treasury Board or Cabinet.

Reyes was also appointed President of the Manitoba Branch of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie (APF) in March 2018 and met with provincial and territorial representatives to address the state of Francophone affairs in the Province of Manitoba, at the 34th Session of the APF Regional Assembly in Quebec City on July 10, 2018.

On, December 6, 2018, Reyes was named on the Economic Growth Committee of Cabinet, a committee which oversees a whole-of-government approach to growing the provincial economy.

He was re-elected in the 2019 provincial election in the new constituency of Waverley.