Martha Hall Findlay

Martha Hall Findlay (born August 17, 1959) is a Canadian businesswoman, entrepreneur, lawyer and politician who previously served as the president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation, a Calgary-based think tank, and is now senior vice-president and chief sustainability officer with Suncor Energy. Previously, she was elected to the House of Commons of Canada as the Liberal Party of Canada's candidate in the Toronto riding of Willowdale in a federal by-election held on March 17, 2008, to fill a vacancy created by former Liberal MP Jim Peterson's resignation. She was re-elected in the 2008 general election but lost her seat in the 2011 election. She had previously been the party's candidate for Newmarket—Aurora in the 2004 federal election, losing narrowly to Conservative candidate Belinda Stronach, and the first declared candidate for the Liberal Party leadership election to succeed Paul Martin in 2006. She was also an unsuccessful candidate in the 2013 leadership race. Born in Toronto, Hall Findlay lived in York Mills, attending the Toronto French School until Grade 8 when she was 13 and her parents separated. She moved with her mother to Thornbury, at the base of the Blue Mountains, east of Owen Sound. She skipped three grades (9, 10 and 11) to enter Grade 12 at Georgian Bay Secondary School in Meaford, and graduated from high school at 15. Hall Findlay was overall silver medallist in the 1976 Canadian Ski Championship, and was named to the national training squad before retiring from competition to concentrate on her education. She graduated in international relations from the University of Toronto, and in law from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. Through university, she worked as a waitress, carpenter and ski race coach; while completing law school, she co-owned and operated two retail stores, living above the Yonge St. store. While in the International Relations Program she married Doug Findlay and, in her second year in 1981, gave birth to her first child, Katie.