They compared times with Curtis' times recorded the week before by Long Branch residents. 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. 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. 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. Īs 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 Ap and Curtis became a member of the first Metro Toronto Council.Īt Metro, Curtis was a critic of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). Curtis delivered compensation checks personally to the flood victims. A CA$1.6 million ($16.1 million in 2021 dollars) plan to demolish 300 homes, the trailer park and create a 35 acres (14 ha) park was developed. Curtis oversaw the relocation of flood victims and advocated for the conversion of a flood plain on which the devastated homes stood into parkland, for which she was able to get the support of Metro Chairman Fred Gardiner. 700 people were evacuated from the trailer park and streets. 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 persons. A plebiscite of taxpayers had turned down using taxpayer funds, and Curtis formed a citizen's committee instead and was able to fund-raise $97,000 of the $100,000 cost within two years, getting the Ontario government to chip in $10,000 to put it over the top. In December 1962, Curtis opened the Long Branch Arena, a new artificial ice rink in Long Branch. As reeve, she oversaw improvements to infrastructure such as the installation of storm sewers on every street, the paving of roads, and the planting of crab apple trees alongside them.
Curtis became the first female reeve of Long Branch and was welcomed with a corsage of orchids at the first meeting. So I went out to try and find someone to fight that drone." Political career Ĭurtis was elected reeve of Long Branch in the 1952 municipal election, defeating incumbent reeve Thomas Carter by 150 votes in an upset victory. Why he hadn't done anything but rubber-stamp the rest of the council all the time I was watching. In 1950, on learning that the deputy reeve of Long Branch was about to be acclaimed, she decided to run against him and won, becoming the first woman elected to Long Branch's village council. Curtis started attending Long Branch Council meetings. Curtis became president of the Home and School Association and successfully lobbied for kindergarten classes to be brought to the community.
The firing of seven teachers in her community prompted Curtis to become involved in activism and public service. A self-described housewife, whose "political commentary was as crusty as the scrumptious apple pies she loved to bake", Curtis did not go to high school or college, but did take university extension courses. She married Bryce Curtis in 1933 and the couple settled in the village of Long Branch, then outside of Toronto, in 1935 because the rents were too high in Toronto. Curtis moved back to Canada and worked in a hat factory in Toronto. She was raised in the United States in St. 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.īorn Ann Marie McCarthy in Midland, Ontario, Canada in 1912, she was one of seven children. She and Dorothy Hague of the Village of Swansea were the first women to become reeves or mayors in the Toronto area, both taking office for the first time on January 1, 1953. She was the first, and only, woman to become reeve of Long Branch. Ann Marie Curtis (1911/12 – Ma), née McCarthy, was a Canadian politician, who served as the reeve of the Toronto suburb of Long Branch, Ontario from 1953 to her retirement in 1962.
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