MARY-MARGARET McMAHON
TORONTO CITY COUNCILLOR, WARD 32

 Mary-Margaret McMahon is a doer and a bridge-builder. She’s an activist, a realist and a champion of community and collectivism. She’s a catalyst of change, a natural connector, and fights hard for what she believes in. She’s an active listener who fights for the common good and is also resourceful, funny, resilient, clever and approachable. Mary-Margaret believes in teamwork across the lines, where everyone makes sacrifices and gets rewards.

Councillor McMahon believes small changes make a big difference, and we can build a better community if we all help out; it makes a much better world. And she has accomplished much in her community building initiatives, including heavy involvement with community planning and sustainability groups. She represented 650,000 constituents as the LiveGreen representative at city council and has developed community gardens, rolled out anti-idling school bus programs and engaged in neighbourhood greening and beautification programs. With three neighbours she founded the ever-popular East Lynn Farmers Market in 2008, enhancing it with summer movie nights and festivals. This initiative helped revitalize part of the Danforth, improving quality of life and attracting new businesses and residents.

She also believes in reaching harmony between building and green: the trick is to balance city growth against social, city-building and environmental priorities. Councillor McMahon played a pivotal role in bringing together city councillors in the fall of 2011 to support a coherent and community-minded approach to waterfront planning. She took her colleagues from the suburbs on walking tours of the waterfront area and engaged them in a big picture approach to waterfront planning that emphasized these vital urban areas as a shared asset for all Torontonians.

Councillor McMahon is in favour of better-performing transit, which will have the strongest impact on downtown car displacement, which should be our highest transit priority. She is pro road tolls and parking levies and is working hard to shed more light on what our options are in the way of revenue tools to fund better transit across the core and the suburbs.

Mary-Margaret knows people are disappointed, distrustful and confused about the city’s planning process, so she’s worked hard in her first year in office to raise awareness and engagement around planning practices and policy. To date, councillor McMahon has, among myriad other undertakings, hosted an informative evening talk with the reputable former City of Toronto chief planner Paul Bedford; co-ordinated a Segment Study Walk to look at, learn and hear about development possibilities along Queen Street East; and passed a motion at council to request a visioning study of Queen Street East, in order to gather stakeholder input and finally create a plan for the area. She is on record as opposing the continued existence of the Ontario Municipal Board in Toronto, because it interferes with our ability to plan our own city and neighbourhoods. However, if maintaining the existing character of Queen Street East is what the community wants, she believes the best tool available to do that would be the establishment of a Heritage Conservation District (HCD) on Queen Street East.  She knows we need to get out ahead of development with a viable plan, so we can push for our wish list of great design, community benefits and sustainable buildings. That is what she hopes to accomplish with the Queen East Visioning Study, commencing this spring. 

Councillor McMahon also believes we’ve spent too much energy on being reactive, rather than pro-active. Her sights are set on changing that, spending more time engaging in community outreach and working with residents to revitalize parks, neighbourhoods and public spaces.  Community benefits and development levies will be used to build the skate park bowl  in Woodbien Park in 2012, to make substantial plans for park improvements, for maintenance and upgrades in Moncur Park, the Eastern Beaches, Woodbine and Norwood Park, among others. Pedestrian and cycling infrastructure is a priority in several busy parts of the ward including the enhancement or elimination of traffic islands at Dundas/Coxwell and Dundas/Kingston/Edgewood.

A former senior manager and education leader, councillor McMahon is concerned with government waste and wasted opportunities. She is working at developing underutilized schools as community hubs for residents of all ages. Mary-Margaret is seeking better approaches to the awarding of city contracts and strongly believes in term limits for city councillors, to help optimize their effectiveness.

She came by her devotion to public service and municipal government honestly. Born and raised in Collingwood, Ont., her father was the town’s mayor for eight years and a town councillor for two and her mother, a tireless community activist and volunteer. She’s a determined, thick-skinned optimist by nature, being the only girl among three brothers. Mary-Margaret is a graduate of the University of Toronto and Ottawa’s Carleton University and has taught English as a second language in both Canada and Japan.

Her unwavering passion for our city and for Ward 32 was, perhaps, best exemplified in the October 2010 municipal election, where she was elected councillor by one of the biggest landslides in the history of this province against a formidable three-term incumbent and former deputy mayor, as well as five other candidates.

Councillor McMahon is committed to nurturing the integrity of Ward 32 and this vibrant city via a sustainable partnership between community and councillors. She believes in uniting the city to face challenges together, where many good things come from combined engagement and efforts. She’s not loyal to any interest groups or political parties. Instead, she is loyal to citizens, good ideas and effective execution and is honoured by the show of confidence placed in her by the electorate. Councillor McMahon is committed to working hard on all her campaign promises, not only for the common good of all Ward 32 constituents, but for all the residents of Toronto.