Shelley Wark-Martyn

Last updated
Shelley Wark-Martyn
Ontario MPP
In office
1990–1995
Preceded by Taras Kozyra
Succeeded by Michael Gravelle
Constituency Port Arthur
Personal details
Born (1963-01-11) January 11, 1963 (age 56)
Thunder Bay, Ontario
Political party Ontario NDP
Alberta Liberal Party
Spouse(s)Kelly Martyn
Children2
Residence Calgary, Alberta
OccupationNurse, social worker

Shelley Wark-Martyn (born January 11, 1963) is a former politician from Ontario, Canada. She was a New Democratic Party member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1990 to 1995. She represented the riding of Port Arthur. She served as a cabinet minister in the government of Bob Rae. Almost two decades later, she served as president of the Alberta Liberal Party stepping down in order to run in Calgary-Currie as a Liberal candidate in the 2015 provincial election.

A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking office in government. Politicians propose, support and create laws or policies that govern the land and, by extension, its people. Broadly speaking, a "politician" can be anyone who seeks to achieve political power in any bureaucratic institution.

Ontario Province of Canada

Ontario is one of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada and is in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province accounting for 38.3 percent of the country's population, and is the second-largest province in total area. Ontario is fourth-largest jurisdiction in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are included. It is home to the nation's capital city, Ottawa, and the nation's most populous city, Toronto, which is also Ontario's provincial capital.

Canada Country in North America

Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres, making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Canada's southern border with the United States, stretching some 8,891 kilometres (5,525 mi), is the world's longest bi-national land border. Its capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. As a whole, Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its land area being dominated by forest and tundra. Consequently, its population is highly urbanized, with over 80 percent of its inhabitants concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, with 70% of citizens residing within 100 kilometres (62 mi) of the southern border. Canada's climate varies widely across its vast area, ranging from arctic weather in the north, to hot summers in the southern regions, with four distinct seasons.

Contents

Background

Wark-Martyn was a social worker and registered nurse before entering political life. In 1987 she received an injury in the workplace that ended her nursing career. She received a small disability pension from the Worker's Compensation Board. [1] She is married to Kelly with whom she has two children, Kurtis and Erika. [2] [3]

Workplace Safety & Insurance Board

The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB); French: Commission de la sécurité professionnelle et de l'assurance contre les accidents du travail) is Ontario's workplace compensation board. As an agency of the Ontario government, the WSIB operates "at arm's length" from the Ministry of Labour and is solely funded by employer premiums, administration fees, and investment revenue. The WSIB is one of the largest compensation boards in North America and is primarily responsible for administering and enforcing the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act (WSIA).

Provincial politics

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. [4]

1990 Ontario general election

The Ontario general election of 1990 was held on September 6, 1990, to elect members of the 35th Legislative Assembly of the province of Ontario, Canada.

The Ontario Liberal Party is a provincial political party in the province of Ontario, Canada. The party is ideologically aligned with the Liberal Party of Canada but the two parties are organizationally independent and have separate, though overlapping, memberships.

Taras Kozyra is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1987 to 1990.

The NDP won a majority government and Wark-Martyn was appointed as Rae's first Minister of Revenue on October 1, 1990. [2] In November, Wark-Martyn introduced a bill to ensure that GST would not be stacked on top of provincial tax. [5] In December, she was featured as part of "Women of the Year" on the cover of Chatelaine magazine along with ten other women cabinet ministers. [6]

The Ministry of Revenue was the ministry in Ontario, Canada responsible for administering most of the province's major tax statutes as well as a number of tax credit, incentive and benefit programs. The ministry was also responsible for managing relationships, particularly with the Canada Revenue Agency, in their administration of provincial taxes and benefit programs on behalf of Ontario. The ministry promoted the integrity of Ontario's self-assessing tax system by encouraging compliance through taxpayer education and customer service, while discouraging non-compliance through enforcement activities.

During her tenure as Revenue minister she dealt with such issues as a proposed market value assessment property tax system for Toronto, [7] giving tax breaks to border communities to stem the flow of cross border shoppers [8] and collecting tax on goods that shoppers bring back across the border. [9] She also studied a possible harmonization of the GST with provincial sales tax. In the latter case, this wasn't adopted until 2010. [10]

Toronto Provincial capital city in Ontario, Canada

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the most populous city in Canada, with a population of 2,731,571 in 2016. Current to 2016, the Toronto census metropolitan area (CMA), of which the majority is within the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), held a population of 5,928,040, making it Canada's most populous CMA. Toronto is the fastest growing city in North America, and is the anchor of an urban agglomeration, known as the Golden Horseshoe in Southern Ontario, located on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. Toronto is an international centre of business, finance, arts, and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world.

In February 1993, Bob Rae drastically reduced the size of his cabinet. The Revenue Minister position was abolished and Wark-Martyn was transferred to Minister without portfolio responsible for Education and Training, assisting Education Minister Dave Cooke. [11] On June 17, 1993, she was reassigned as a minister without portfolio responsible for health, assisting Health Minister Ruth Grier. [12]

Bob Rae Canadian politician

Robert Keith Rae is a Canadian lawyer, negotiator, public speaker, and former politician. He was the member of Parliament for Toronto Centre and was the interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from 2011 to 2013. He was previously leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party and the 21st Premier of Ontario, from 1990 until 1995. Between 1978 and 2013, he was elected 11 times to federal and provincial parliaments.

A minister without portfolio is either a government minister with no specific responsibilities or a minister who does not head a particular ministry. The sinecure is particularly common in countries ruled by coalition governments and a cabinet with decision-making authority wherein a minister without portfolio, while he or she may not head any particular office or ministry, still receives a ministerial salary and has the right to cast a vote in cabinet decisions. In some countries where the executive branch is not composed of a coalition of parties and, more often, in countries with purely presidential systems of government, such as the United States, the position of minister without portfolio is uncommon.

On February 3, 1993, Ontario premier Bob Rae appointed six ministers without portfolio in the Ontario government. These were not full members of cabinet but rather provided policy assistance to cabinet ministers. They were generally described as "junior ministers."

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. [13]

Cabinet positions

Ontario Provincial Government of Bob Rae
Cabinet posts (3)
PredecessorOfficeSuccessor
Remo Mancini Minister of Revenue
1990–1993		Position abolished [lower-alpha 1]
Sub-Cabinet Posts (2)
PredecessorTitleSuccessor
Minister Without Portfolio
(1993–1995)
Responsible for Health
New positionMinister Without Portfolio
(1993 February–June)
Responsible for Education and Training		 Mike Farnan

Later life

In 1997 she was elected to the council of Oliver Township in the metro area of Thunder Bay in 1997. In 1999, she was appointed to the Capital Regional Health Board.

In 2004, Wark-Martyn began working in Calgary, Alberta for Bayshore Home Health, a home-delivery health-care service. Before this, she had worked in sales marketing for The Pampered Chef. She became involved in the Alberta Liberal Party, eventually running for the presidency of the party and winning that position in May 2014. She was the party's candidate for the riding of Calgary-Currie in the 2015 provincial election, placing fourth with 7.7% of the vote. [14]

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References

Notes

  1. ↑ This ministry position remained vacant until it was re-established in 2007 by Dalton McGuinty. The new minister was Michael Chan.

Citations

  1. ↑ Toughill, Kelly (February 4, 1993). "2 ministers are collecting injury benefits papers show". Toronto Star. p. A11.
  2. 1 2 "Ministers bring range of experience to cabinet". The Ottawa Citizen. October 2, 1990. p. A5.
  3. ↑ Daly, Rita (May 30, 1993). "Rae, complete provincial cabinet give public system vote of confidence". Toronto Star. p. A10.
  4. ↑ "Voting results in each riding". The Globe and Mail. September 8, 1990. p. A6.
  5. ↑ Armstrong, Jane (November 21, 1990). "'Fair tax' commission to pave way for change". Toronto Star. p. A10.
  6. ↑ "Cabinet ministers are 'Women of the Year'". The Vancouver Sun. December 11, 1990. p. A7.
  7. ↑ Royson, James (February 1, 1991). "Tax reform decision still months away, minister says". Toronto Star. p. A6.
  8. ↑ "Tax breaks for border cities called unlikely". Kitchener - Waterloo Record. April 5, 1991. p. B9.
  9. ↑ McCarthy, Shawn (May 17, 1991). "Jelinek nixes NDP plea to collect provincial tax". Toronto Star. p. B1.
  10. ↑ Benzie, Robert (June 30, 2010). "Why Ottawa and Queen's Park embraced the HST". Toronto Star. p. A6.
  11. ↑ "Ontario cabinet". The Hamilton Spectator. February 4, 1993. p. A2.
  12. ↑ "Farnan rejoins cabinet". Kitchener - Waterloo Record. June 17, 1993. p. A2.
  13. ↑ "Summary of Valid Ballots by Candidate". Elections Ontario. June 8, 1995. Archived from the original on March 16, 2014. Retrieved 2014-03-02.
  14. ↑ Wood, James (March 12, 2015). "Alberta Liberal president steps down to run for party in coming election". Calgary Herald.
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