Shelley Wark-Martyn

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Shelley Wark-Martyn (born January 11, 1963 in Thunder Bay, Ontario) is a politician in Ontario, Canada. She was a New Democratic Party member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1990 to 1995, and served as a cabinet minister in the government of Bob Rae.

Wark-Martyn was a social worker and registered nurse before entering political life. She was elected to the Ontario legislature in the 1990 provincial election, defeating incumbent Liberal Taras Kozyra by 1,034 votes in the Northern Ontario riding of Port Arthur.

The NDP won an unexpected majority government in this election, and Wark-Martyn was appointed as Rae's first Minister of Revenue on October 1, 1990. Her tenure in this office was largely uneventful. On February 3, 1993, she was demoted to the junior cabinet position of minister without portfolio responsible for Education and Training, assisting Education Minister Dave Cooke. On June 17, 1993, she was reassigned as a minister without portfolio responsible for Health, assisting Health Minister Ruth Grier.

In early 1995, Wark-Martyn announced that Lakehead University and Confederation College would be receiving almost one million dollars in grants to develop programs and services to aboriginal people.

The NDP were defeated in the provincial election of 1995, and Wark-Martyn lost her seat to Liberal Michael Gravelle by almost 7,000 votes. She has not sought a return to provincial politics since this time, though she was elected to the Thunder Bay municipal council in 1997. In 1999, she was appointed to the Capital Regional Health Board.

In 2004, Wark-Martyn began working in Calgary, Alberta for Bayshore Bridges, a home-delivery health-care service. Before this, she had worked in sales marketing for The Pampered Chef.