Chow is a former Canadian politician who served as federal New Democratic Party Member of Parliament for Trinity-Spadina from 2006–2014, and Toronto city councillor from 1991 to 2005. Chow is the widow of former NDP and Opposition Leader Jack Layton; they were married from 1988 until his death from cancer in 2011. She was a candidate in the 2014 Toronto mayoral election, where she placed third behind winner John Tory and runner-up Doug Ford.
Chow won the Trinity—Spadina riding for the New Democratic Party on January 23, 2006, becoming a member of the House of Commons of Canada. In 2011, she was re-elected in her riding for her third straight win. She speaks Cantonese, Mandarin and English. In May 2012, Chow was named one of the top 25 Canadian immigrants in Canada by Canadian Immigrant magazine. Chow's personal memoir, titled My Journey, was published January 21, 2014. Chow resigned her seat in parliament on March 12, 2014, to run in the 2014 Toronto mayoral election. Following her mayoral election loss, Chow became a distinguished visiting professor at Ryerson University from 2015 to 2018.

June Callwood was born in Chatham, Ontario in 1924. She attended Brantford Collegiate, where she was the editor of the school newspaper "the Grumbler". She left school early, and her first job was at the Brantford Expositor. She moved to Toronto and became a reporter for the Globe and Mail in 1942. She married fellow journalist Trent Frayne, in 1944, followed but Callwood retained her single name since the Globe did not hire married women. As their four children were born, June Callwood began her prolific freelance career, writing magazine pieces, many of them for Maclean's magazine.
Her first book, A Woman Doctor Looks at Life and Love, basically a ghostwritten effort was published in 1957. A serious depression in the 1950s led her to the research that produced her first book under her own name, Love, Hate, Fear and Anger. The publishing contacts Callwood made for that work led to her ghostwriting books on the lives of several prominent Americans including Charles Mayo, Otto Preminger and Barbara Walters. From 1975-1978 she hosted the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) program, In Touch. More recently, she has acted as interviewer on VisionTV's National Treasures and has compiled a number of these interviews into a book entitled June Callwood's National Treasures.
Outside of writing, June Callwood founded or co-founded over 50 social action organizations including Digger House, a youth hostel; Nellie's hostel for women; Jessie's, a centre for teenage parents; Casey House Hospice for those with AIDS; PEN Canada; the Canadian Civil Liberties Foundation and Feminists Against Censorship.
She was awarded the Order of Canada in 1986. She received a Fellowship from Ryerson in 1990.
June Callwood died April 14, 2007 in Toronto.