Marilyn Churley
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Marilyn Churley (born May 7, 1948 in Old Perlican, Newfoundland) is a Canadian politician who represented the riding of Toronto—Danforth in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1990 to 2005. She is a member of the Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP), and was a member of the Ontario cabinet during the Bob Rae government. In opposition she served as the party's critic for the Ministry of the Environment, Women's Issues and Democratic Renewal. She resigned from the legislature to enter federal politics as the federal NDP's candidate in the riding of Beaches—East York, but was defeated in the 2006 federal election. Churley has again been nominated in Beaches—East York for the next federal election.
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[edit] Early life
Churley was raised in Happy Valley, Labrador, and moved to the downtown Toronto neighbourhood of Riverdale in 1978. She has served as a director of the Co-op Housing Federation of Toronto, and was a co-founder of the Bain Avenue Day Care Centre. Churley was elected to the Toronto City Council in 1988, where she was instrumental in a number of Toronto council initiatives, including the energy efficiency office, the "Clean Up the Don" movement (with fellow city councillors Jack Layton and Barbara Hall) and police patrols on bicycle.
Among other community commitments, Churley has also been a director of the Co-operative Housing Federation of Toronto.
[edit] Provincial politics
She was easily elected as a New Democrat in the riding of Riverdale in the provincial election of 1990. The NDP won a majority government in this election; after briefly serving as a Parliamentary Assistant, Churley was named Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations on March 18, 1991, and retained this position throughout the Rae government's mandate. In cabinet, Churley opposed attempts to reduce social assistance to single mothers, and only accepted the introduction of casino gambling with reluctance.
Toronto singer/songwriter Kurt Swinghammer has written a song called "The Signature of Marilyn Churley", inspired by Churley's signature on an elevator license dating from her term in the Rae cabinet.
Rae's government lost the provincial election of 1995, and Churley was one of seventeen NDP members to retain a seat in the legislature. In opposition, she worked to force the government of Mike Harris to keep the Riverdale Hospital open, stopped the closure of 11 schools, and forced the government to cap tax increases for small business. She also served as Deputy Speaker of the legislature from October 1997 to October 1998.
In 1996, after a lengthy search, Churley was re-united with a son that she had given up for adoption in 1968. She has subsequently brought forward several private members' bills to make adoption disclosure easier. None of these bills passed, but Churley was a prominent supporter of Liberal MPP Sandra Pupatello's Adoption Information Disclosure Act, which passed in 2005 contained similar provisions to many of her proposed bills.
In the provincial election of 1999, she was re-elected in the redistributed riding of Broadview—Greenwood (later renamed Toronto—Danforth, at the behest of then-federal Member of Parliament Dennis Mills).
Churley became deputy leader of the NDP in 2001, following the retirement of Frances Lankin from the legislature. In the by-election to replace Lankin, the Liberals nominated Greenpeace co-founder and popular television personality Robert Hunter to run for them against former East York mayor Michael Prue for the NDP. During the race, Churley denounced Hunter for having written a novel with first-person accounts of encounters with child prostitutes in Bangkok. The Toronto Sun quoted Ms. Churley as saying: "It says something about Bob Hunter's character he could write such nasty, disgusting stuff about young girls in Thailand." Hunter claimed that the story was written as satire, and sued both Churley and Prue for slander. The suit was withdrawn after the by-election, which Prue won.
Churley was easily re-elected for a fourth term in 2003. After the 2003 provincial election, when the NDP lost official party status in the Legislature, Churley threatened to legally change her surname to "Churley-NDP" so that the Speaker would be forced to say NDP when recognizing her in the House. (A non-official party loses the right to have its members addressed in the Legislature as members of the party.) A compromise was later reached which made this change unnecessary, and the party regained official status when Andrea Horwath won a 2004 by-election.
[edit] Federal politics
Churley was a prominent supporter of Jack Layton in his bid to become leader of the federal New Democratic Party in 2002. This position put her at odds with party leader Howard Hampton, who supported Bill Blaikie.
In May 2005, Churley announced that once a federal election was called she would resign her Toronto—Danforth seat at the provincial legislature and run for a seat in the Canadian House of Commons. Since Toronto-Danforth is Layton's seat in the federal parliament, Churley sought to represent the neighbouring riding of Beaches—East York. Among the supporters who canvassed with her during the election was her friend, Canadian singer/songwriter Sarah Harmer, who she had met fighting for the protection of the Niagara Escarpment. However, Churley could not overcome accusations of being a parachute candidate, despite living only a few miles away from the Beaches—East York riding, and was defeated in the January 23, 2006 election by incumbent Liberal Maria Minna in a hard fought contest.
On February 9th, 2007, Churley's career of 20 years in public life was celebrated at a fundraiser in Toronto. Guests included Jian Ghomeshi, Jack Layton, Olivia Chow, Peter Tabuns, Michael Prue, Sarah Harmer, and Shirley Douglas. During the event, Churley clarified that she will be once again seeking nomination in Beaches—East York for a potential federal election in 2007.
In March, 2007 Churley was again nominated, and will be the candidate for the NDP in Beaches—East York in the next federal election.
