Steven John Ashton (born February 29, 1956) is a British-born Canadian politician in Manitoba, Canada. He was a long-serving member of the Manitoba legislature,^[1] and was a long-time cabinet minister in the New Democratic Party governments of Gary Doer and Greg Selinger.^[2] He resigned from cabinet on December 22, 2014 to challenge Selinger for the leadership of the party. Ashton was eliminated from the race, after finishing last on the first ballot at the 2015 NDP leadership convention. Selinger was re-elected party leader on the second ballot. In 2017, Ashton ran for Manitoba NDP leader losing to Wab Kinew.^[3][4]

Ashton was born in Surrey, England, the son of John Stewart Ashton and Nedra May Childs.^[5] He moved with his family to Thompson, in northern Manitoba, at age eleven. He was educated at R.D. Parker Collegiate in that community, the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg and Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. He was President of the University of Manitoba Students' Union in 1978-79 and has lectured in Economics for the former Inter Universities North in Thompson and Cross Lake.^[1]

Ashton was first elected to the Manitoba legislature in the 1981 provincial election, defeating Progressive Conservative incumbent Ken MacMaster by 72 votes in the constituency of Thompson. At the time of his first election, Ashton was involved in an INCO strike in the Thompson area as a member of the United Steelworkers of America. He was re-elected in the 1986 election by a greater margin. Ashton did not serve in the cabinet of Howard Pawley.^[6]

The NDP were defeated in the provincial election of 1988, although Ashton won his own riding by a comfortable margin. He would later serve as House Leader for the NDP in opposition, and was easily re-elected in the provincial elections of 1990, 1995 and 1999.^[6] In 1995, he supported Lorne Nystrom's bid to lead the federal New Democratic Party.

In 1979, Ashton married Hariklia^[5] "Hari" Dimitrakopoulou, and the couple have two children, Niki and Alexander.^[1] Niki is also a politician and is the federal NDP Member of Parliament for the riding of Churchill—Keewatinook Aski,^[12] while his son Alexander was elected chairman of the board of trustees for the School District of Mystery Lake.^[13] Ashton is also Secretary of the Canadian Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles, seeking the return of the treasured sculptures from Britain to Greece. He speaks Greek, and has written on the political culture of that nation.^[6]