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Veteran trustee known as ‘force of nature’

She fought to protect public education, against budget cuts under Harris

KRISTIN RUSHOWY

Irene Atkinson was a force on the Toronto public school board for 40 years, a strong voice fighting for kids — and against budget cuts.

The veteran trustee and former board chair died peacefully in hospital last Monday, her family said. She was 85.

“Everybody says she was a force of nature,” said Maggie Atkinson, the eldest of her three daughters.

“I remember, from when I was a little girl, when we would talk around the dinner table about what was going on in our lives and around the world, my mom always said, ‘If you are unhappy about the way something is, you should do something about it.’

“It was kind of a mantra of hers.”

Maggie Atkinson said her mom “supported us in our activities, whatever they were. She marched in the picket lines with my sister Pam Evans who was a teacher with the (Toronto board) and she demonstrated for AIDS funding and renewal of the National AIDS Strategy because I had AIDS, and was an AIDS activist.

“It was probably my mother’s example and words about doing something if you didn’t like the way things were that inspired me to become an activist.”

Former premier Kathleen Wynne, a parent activist before running for trustee and then MPP, said “I met Irene when I was a young mom” and she was chair of what was the Toronto board of education.

“She was fearless, direct and feisty then, and that never changed,” said Wynne.

Atkinson, a Conservative, who later found her views aligned better with the NDP, campaigned for the Liberal Wynne many times because of their strong bond from those days.

“To say she did not suffer fools gladly is a pale understatement,” said Wynne.

“No point in talking to Irene if you hadn’t done your homework. She morphed from a Progressive Conservative to a member of the NDP thanks to (former Conservative premier) Mike Harris.

“But whatever the party label, she was focused on the wellbeing of children. Irene was always the best dressed woman in the room with the force of will and voice to match. “She was one of a kind.” Early on in her career, Atkinson pushed for child care in schools, after she opened her own preschool when she didn’t like the choices available for young Maggie.

She fought budget cuts under the Harris government and was part of a “caucus” of trustees who banded together to protect public education funding.

Eight years ago, she barely survived a massive fire in her High Park home; she had to be revived on site after being found, lifeless, inside the front door.

She was put in an induced coma and was on life support before needing months of physiotherapy to recover. Her beloved cat Tigger was killed in the fire.

She recovered and even returned to the board for a short time before retiring. A year and a half ago, Atkinson moved to a retirement residence.

Atkinson was always known as a social woman who loved to get dressed up in something sparkly or glittery, attend parties, dance and tell a good story.

“She loved her single malt scotch, and her cigarettes,” said Maggie Atkinson. It was a habit her children managed to convince her to give up just two years ago.

The family was “very proud of her” and her accomplishments, and her daughters remember helping out on her political campaigns.

“She took a real interest in us. She wanted to know everything, and how everything went at school,” said Maggie Atkinson, who added that her mom’s political career gave her the flexibility so she could be home at lunch time and after school with her girls.

“But sometimes we had to be a little careful about what we said; we didn’t want her phoning the school to investigate what happened.

“She always took an interest if she heard a story and thought there had been a wrong or there was a systemic problems and tried to fix it.”

Atkinson was an avid reader, and passed on a love of literature to her daughters.

“Up until the last few days of her life, she was still reading,” said Maggie Atkinson. “When we were little, she would read poems and instilled that love of poetry in us. I told her near the end that I felt that was one of the gifts she gave us.”

New Democrat MPP Marit Stiles, a former Toronto trustee, said she knew Atkinson because of west-end politics and called her “an incredible champion for public education.

“She brought child care into schools, because she had operated a child-care previously. She was one of the first to really be pushing for that kind of model,” Stiles said.

“It’s a great loss.” Liberal MPP Michael Coteau, a former provincial cabinet minister and a former Toronto trustee, said “she was one of the toughest politicians I ever came across … always did her homework, sharp and committed.

“Although we sometimes didn’t align, she was one of the politicians I learned from.”

Former trustee colleague and friend Sheila Cary-Meagher said Atkinson “mattered as a person and as a politician — not something that can be said about most in public life.”

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2021-07-31T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-07-31T07:00:00.0000000Z

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