Marilyn Churley

Marilyn Churley is a Canadian politician, who represents the riding of Toronto?Danforth in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. She is a member of the Ontario New Democratic Party, and serves as the party's critic for the Ministry of the Environment, Women's Issues and Democratic Renewal.

Churley was born in Labrador and moved to the Toronto neighbourhood of Riverdale in 1978. Churley was elected to Toronto City Council, 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.

In 1990, Churley ran for provincial office. She served as Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations in the NDP government of Bob Rae. When Rae's government lost the election of 1995, Churley was one of the NDP members who successfully retained her seat. 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.

Among other community commitments, Churley has also been a director of the Co-operative Housing Federation of Toronto.

After the 2003 Ontario election, when the NDP lost official party status in the Legislature, Churley mused in the Toronto press about having her surname legally changed 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.) However, the party regained official status when Andrea Horwath won a 2004 byelection.

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.