Nancy Diamond

Nancy Diamond (born c. 1941) is a municipal politician in Ontario, Canada. She served as mayor of Oshawa from 1991 to 2003. Previously she was as a city councillor from 1988 to 1991. In 2010, she returned to council and presently serves as a city and Durham regional councillor.

Background

Diamond was born in Sudbury, Ontario.^[1] She studied economics at Queen's University and worked in university and college administration.^[1]

Politics

After running for Oshawa City Council in 1985 and losing by a margin of just seven votes,^[2] Diamond won election to council in 1988.^[3]

She ran for mayor in the 1991 municipal election, defeating incumbent mayor Allan Mason.^[4] Her campaign focused on a controversial downtown redevelopment project championed by Mason, which Diamond dismissed as "unrealistic, unmanageable and unfinanceable."^[5] She was not opposed to the redevelopment in principle, and later supported a revised version of the proposal, but objected to several aspects of Mason's proposed financing and implementation plans.

One of her first stated goals as mayor was the establishment of a university in the city, a goal which was attained when the University of Ontario Institute of Technology was chartered in 2002.^[1] She spearheaded initiatives to improve the city's economy, including convening a panel of area mayors to come up with a plan to save the city's General Motors plant after staffing cutbacks at the company were announced.^[6] She lobbied for improvements to the city's transportation network, including the improvement of Ontario Highway 401, the extension of Ontario Highway 407^[7] and the expansion of the Oshawa Airport.^[8] She also spearheaded the creation of a city manager position at Oshawa City Hall,^[9] and tried to avoid or minimize municipal tax increases.^[10]

She was reelected to a second term as mayor in 1994. Priorities during her second term included economic diversification, and the revitalization of the city's struggling downtown core.^[11] During this era, she began to attract some controversy for endorsing a plan to amalgamate Oshawa with the neighbouring towns of Whitby and Courtice,^[12] and for her handling of an unconfirmed rumour that the board of the Canadian Automotive Museum was planning to move the facility from Oshawa to Toronto.^[13]

Diamond was re-elected to a third term as mayor in the 1997 municipal election, and to a fourth term in the 2000 municipal election.

In the 2003 municipal election, Diamond faced allegations that her style as mayor had been abrasive,^[14] that her management of the city's downtown revitalization program was failing and that her focus on freezing municipal tax rates was no longer serving the city's changing needs.^[14] She was defeated by councillor John Gray.^[14]

Diamond returned to municipal politics in the 2010 municipal election, winning election to a dual Oshawa City Council and Durham Regional Council seat, and was reelected in the 2014 municipal election.

References