Ellen MacKinnon

Ellen MacKinnon (born April 27, 1926 in Montreal, Quebec, died February 13, 2001) was a former politician in Ontario, Canada. She was a New Democratic Party member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1990 to 1995.

MacKinnon quit school after Grade 8, and was a factory labourer during World War II. She was a homemaker for several years, and also worked as a teacher, cook, busdriver and child care worker, as well as being involved in groups for the mentally handicapped in the Sarnia region. She was also a municipal councillor for the township of Plympton in the 1970s and 1980s, and served on the Lambton County public school board from 1988 to 1990.

She was elected to the Ontario legislature in the provincial election of 1990, defeating Progressive Conservative Bob Langstaff by 1,026 votes in the riding of Lambton (incumbent Liberal David Smith was third). During the campaign, MacKinnon spoke out against shipping Toronto area garbage to the Sarnia region.

The NDP won an unexpected majority government in this election, and MacKinnon served as a backbench supporter of Bob Rae's administration for the next five years. (She later acknowledged that the NDP riding association had told her she had no chance of winning, prior to the election itself.) She did not seek re-election in 1995.

In 1994, MacKinnon received anonymous death threats because of her support for same-sex spousal benefits. She did not change her position.

MacKinnon died in early 2001. On April 23 of that year, the Ontario legislature paid her an official tribute.[1]