Ted McMeekin was born and raised in Hamilton. In 1977 he was elected the youngest member of Hamilton City Council, representing the central Mountain, and was returned for a second term. In the early 1980s, Ted and his wife Barb, a McMaster Medical School graduate who joined a Carlisle family practice, chose to live, work, and raise their family in the Flamborough, Waterdown, and Carlisle community. More than forty years later, that choice still defines him.

 

In 1994 the people of the Town of Flamborough elected Ted as their Mayor, returning him to office in 1997. As Mayor he led the only council in Ontario to lower local property taxes six years in a row, and he helped build the partnerships that delivered the local YMCA, Joe Sams Park, Alexander Place, and Guardian Angels School, while championing the rural and village character that makes our area special.

 

Ted then represented our area at Queen's Park for eighteen years as MPP, serving in four Ontario Cabinet portfolios: Government and Consumer Services; Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs; Community and Social Services; and Municipal Affairs and Housing. After politics, he spent four years as a community volunteer and charity fundraiser before residents asked him to run for City Council. In 2022 they returned him to Hamilton City Council as Ward 15 Councillor.

 

As your councillor, Ted made a promise and kept it: to respond to every constituent email and phone call within 24 hours, and to speak the truth rather than just what people want to hear. He has made listening the foundation of the job, with regular town halls, a ward community council that decides and votes on local project funding, and a record of taking residents' concerns to City Hall and getting results.

 

Ted is a lifetime community volunteer: past President of the Hamilton-Burlington YMCA and the Hamilton-Wentworth Lung Association, past Chair of the Canadian Mental Health Association's Education Committee, and a former board member of Joseph Brant Hospital, the Art Gallery of Hamilton Council of Governors, and Routes Youth Services.

 

Before politics he was Executive Director of the Burlington Social Planning Council, Chair of Part-time Studies at Mohawk College, and a local business owner who ran the award-winning CHAPTERS Bookstore in Waterdown, served as Vice-President of the Flamborough Chamber of Commerce, and chaired the Waterdown BIA.

 

A graduate of Mohawk College, McMaster University, and Wilfrid Laurier University, Ted has received lifetime achievement recognition from all three institutions, along with the Queen's Silver and Gold Jubilee medals for community service.