Marie Curtis

Ann Marie Curtis (1911/12 – March 12, 2006 As reeve, she also served on Metropolitan Toronto Council (Metro Toronto Council) from its creation in 1953 until 1962 and was the first woman on its executive.

Background Born Ann Marie McCarthy in Midland, Ontario, Canada in 1912, she was one of seven children. "I thought that was awful. Why he hadn't done anything but rubber-stamp the rest of the council all the time I was watching. So I went out to try and find someone to fight that drone." Curtis became the first female reeve of Long Branch and was welcomed with a corsage of orchids at the first meeting.

In October 1954, Hurricane Hazel caused Etobicoke Creek to flood Island Road and 43rd Street and a trailer park in Long Branch, washing trailers and homes into Lake Ontario, killing seven people. 700 people were evacuated from the trailer park and streets. Curtis oversaw the relocation of flood victims and advocated for the conversion of a flood plain on which the devastated homes stood into parkland, Curtis delivered compensation checks personally to the flood victims.

As reeve, Curtis became a member of York County Council also, which opposed the Cumming Report to create Metropolitan Toronto, which grouped Toronto and its surrounding suburbs into a two-tier government The Government of Ontario over-rode the suburban concerns and Metropolitan Toronto came into being in 1954, while Metro Toronto Council came into being first, on April 15, 1953 and Curtis became a member of the first Metro Toronto Council.

At Metro, Curtis was a critic of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). She was an opponent of the two-zone fare plan put in place by Metro and the TTC, causing persons in Long Branch to pay two fares to get downtown, while service was poor. Curtis and other suburban politicians organized protests and community meetings, but were unsuccessful in stopping its implementation, although they were able to block the TTC's suburban representative from reappointment. Curtis arranged for Allan Lamport, TTC commissioner and William Russell, chairman of the TTC, to ride from Long Branch to downtown and back, to impress upon them the slow service. They compared times with Curtis' times recorded the week before by Long Branch residents. The trips took 20 minutes less than usual, and Curtis claimed that the TTC had arranged a "smart fix", having extra streetcars and inspectors around during the test, a claim the TTC denied. In 1962, Curtis claimed that the TTC was concealing a report that a one-zone policy would cut its annual deficit by half. The two-zone policy was phased out in 1973.

Retirement Curtis retired from politics in 1962. According to Curtis, two major reasons for her to get into politics had been resolved: storm sewers and paved roads in Long Branch. The lack of sewers had caused her garden to flood after every storm. The lack of paved roads meant that Long Branch sprinkled tar yearly on dirt roads, leaving children to track the tar into the house. Curtis moved with her husband to a retirement home in Flesherton, Ontario. She also served as spokesperson and advisor to members of Grey County Council in the 1960s and 1970s.

Curtis advocated in 1962 for the amalgamation of Long Branch with neighbouring villages Mimico and New Toronto, on the basis that the three small communities had three votes on Metro Council, more votes than larger municipalities in Metro. The proposal eventually went to the Ontario Municipal Board, which left the villages in place. The Government of Ontario amalgamated the three communities into Etobicoke in 1967, and later Toronto.

Curtis died in 2006 at the age of 94 of an apparent stroke in the Grey Gables home in Markdale, Ontario. Curtis is an inductee into the Etobicoke Hall of Fame.