[5] She is the daughter of Hariklia Dimitrakopoulou and former Manitoba provincial NDP cabinet minister Steve Ashton.

[8] She studied human rights and social justice at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs.

[citation needed] On November 7, 2011, in Montreal, Ashton launched her campaign as the ninth person to join the 2012 NDP leadership race.

[15] After the 2015 federal election, Ashton was appointed the NDP critic for Jobs, Employment and Workforce Development in the 42nd Canadian Parliament.

[19] She was stripped of her critic roles on January 1, 2021, after revealing to the public on Twitter[20] that she had travelled to Greece during the 2020 COVID-19 second wave to visit an "ailing grandmother."

[citation needed] In June 2024, media reports surfaced that Ashton, who frequently joins parliamentary proceedings remotely, billed taxpayers $17,641 for a family trip over Christmas 2022, citing stakeholder meetings on official language priorities.

Ashton, her partner, and their children traveled from Thompson, Manitoba, to Ottawa, Quebec City, and Montreal, with some expenses covering leisure activities.

In February 2022, Ashton introduced a bill to rewrite its mandate focus on projects that tackle the impacts of climate change, and to fund publicly owned infrastructure instead of trying to implicate private finance.

[27][28] During the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis Ashton tweeted the following: "PM Trudeau sides with [U.S. President Donald] Trump's regime change agenda and Brazil's fascist President in support of someone calling for a military coup in Venezuela," Ashton said on Twitter.

[30] She has "sponsored a petition[31] in the House of Commons that calls for Meng’s immediate release; urged the government to “protect Canadian jobs” by allowing Huawei to participate in the roll-out of 5G in Canada; and encouraged a foreign policy review to develop an “independent” foreign policy on China."

[32] Ashton was criticized for sharing on social media a podcast episode that suggested Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland's support of Ukraine in the face of pending invasion from Russia was tied to her "Nazi past".