‘SHE MOVED MOUNTAINS’
Longtime political fixture remembered for hard work, kindness and love for the city
Veteran city councillor Pam McConnell remembered as a fierce advocate for social justice.
Veteran city councillor Pam McConnell will be remembered for her fierce advocacy for social justice and her passion for family.
McConnell, who represented Ward 28 (Toronto Centre-Rosedale), was first elected to city council in 1994 after serving for 12 years as a school trustee.
She died Friday after suffering from a continuing problem with her lungs. She was 71. “Today, I lost my mother, my mentor and my best friend,” her daughter Heather Ann said Friday afternoon.
“She loved everyone and thought everyone was important. She knew the name of all the cleaners at city hall and all the taxi drivers who lived in her community.”
Outside of work, her mom loved travel and “fancy Italian Ferragamo shoes,” she said.
Despite her hectic schedule as one of the city’s deputy mayors, McConnell always made time for family — her husband Jim, daughters Heather Ann and Madelyn, and her four grandchildren.
“Her top priorities were her children and grandchildren, but there was no person she loved more than my dad, her husband of 50 years,” Heather Ann said.
McConnell was born in Carlisle, England. Her father died after serving in the Second World War. Her mother, Margaret, later remarried and her second husband Harry Ritchie adopted Pam. They had five more children, giving McConnell two sisters and three brothers.
She first moved to the Cabbagetown and Regent Park neighbourhoods 50 years ago and never left the area.
It was there that she met her best friend and “co-conspirator” Noreen Dunphy.
The two shared a passion for housing, politics, protests and a “love for this city.”
“It is unspeakably sad to lose her now to an inexplicable illness,” Dunphy said.
At city hall, her council colleagues mourned the loss of an advocate and friend.
“Throughout her 35 years of public service she moved mountains — in her ward with Regent Park, the Distillery District and Corktown Common and across the city as deputy mayor working on poverty reduction,” said Councillor Paula Fletcher, a longtime friend and colleague.
“She was well respected by all councillors and always took the time to be kind even in the heat of argument in city council.”
As a scheduled debate at city council continued after lunch on Friday, councillors who had received the news could be seen quietly spreading the word to their colleagues.
Staff made their way into the chamber as Mayor John Tory announced McConnell’s death, calling her “an example of public service in every respect.”
“Pam was a friend to all of us, but also a friend to many, many others and of course was a wife, a mother and a grandmother — and how proud she was of her family,” Tory said. “We knew her as well as a woman who proudly and enthusiastically and energetically served her city.
“I don’t think there’s any question whatsoever that Toronto is a better and fairer place and city thanks to her service and also thanks to her advocacy.”
Everyone present in the chamber stood for a moment of silence. When it was over, councillors wrapped their arms around each other.
Others remained motionless in their seats.
As the room slowly cleared, a T-shirt was placed over McConnell’s desk as a shroud, with bold type facing upwards: End poverty.
McConnell was a passionate advocate for social justice and led the way, in her seventh and final term, for the city’s poverty-reduction strategy.
“Poverty is everybody’s business,” McConnell told the Star in 2015 after the strategy was released.
“The survival and prosperity of Toronto demands that we pay attention to moving as many Torontonians as possible down the road from poverty to prosperity,” she said.
McConnell’s fight to reduce poverty and attention to issues affecting women and children lasted decades, from her days as a school trustee to the revitalization of Regent Park.
“Pam was an exceptional advocate for her constituents and for those less well off city wide,” said former mayor David Miller in a statement.
“Her passion to make a meaningful positive difference in people’s lives will be sorely missed at city hall.”
Suzanne Kavanagh, the president of the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Association, said McConnell will be missed across her ward.
“It’s just a huge, huge loss for our area,” said Kavanagh, who considered McConnell a mentor and worked closely with her on neighbourhood issues.
“She’d wink at me and say remember 23,” Kavanagh said — the number of votes needed to get an item passed at council.
A long-time member of the NDP, McConnell was known for her ability to bring people together, regardless of their political affiliation or their particular views on an issue.
“Pam had an ability to work with anybody, regardless of political differences,” her brother Phil Ritchie said.
“I think growing up in a house with five siblings and one bathroom, that might have set the stage,” he said, joking that it was sometimes hard for her brothers and sisters to get a word in edgewise.
Councillor Jaye Robinson, who sat near McConnell in the council chamber for the past six years, remembered her as “feisty” and “passionate” about her work.
“She invested the time that needed to be invested to move her issues through council, which is not always easy when you’re dealing with 44 people.”
It’s an approach she took to her work as a member of the Toronto Police Services Board, where she served from late 2003 to 2010. There, McConnell fought to address racial profiling and bring community policing back to Toronto.
Early in her tenure, McConnell served as vice-chair of the board under the chairmanship of Toronto lawyer Alan Heisey, who said he was a “big fan” of McConnell despite being on the opposite end of the political spectrum.
“Some people make politics a career, and for her I think it was a vocation.” With files from Laurie Monsebraaten and Betsy Powell