Early Life and City Politics
Cullen was born February 18, 1951 in Montreal to a Dutch mother and an Irish father, who was a sea captain-turned successful businessman in Montreal. Cullen attended Lower Canada College in Montreal before moving to Ottawa to attend Carleton University. At Carleton, he was the President of the Carleton University Student Liberals and served on the Carleton University Students Association as Arts Representative and later as Vice-President of CUSA. However, he didn't finish at Carleton due to poor grades. He worked at Fat Albert's in Ottawa (a sub shop) before heading to Toronto, where he worked as a bank teller and savings supervisor. He then went to York University in Toronto, where he obtained both a Bachelor's degree (Honours) and a Master's degree in economics. He also became a member of Mensa. Cullen later returned to Ottawa to work initially for Informetrica (an economics consulting firm) as an economist, moving on to the federal Department of Health and Welfare as a policy analyst. There he joined the Economists', Statisticians' & Sociologists' Association (ESSA - a federal public service union), where he rose to Vice-President.
In 1982 he was elected school board trustee with the Ottawa Board of Education. In the 1985 provincial election, he ran as a Liberal candidate in the riding of Ottawa West but lost to Ontario Progressive Conservative Party incumbent Reuben Baetz, a cabinet minister, by about 3,000 votes. Easily re-elected as a school board trustee in 1985, Cullen again sought the Liberal nomination to run in the Ottawa West riding in the 1987 election, but lost to local lawyer Bob Chiarelli. During this time Cullen was also active in Kiwanis, serving as President of the Westboro Kiwanis Club in 1985-86.
He ran for Ottawa City Council in 1988 in the Richmond Ward, but lost to incumbent Jacquelin Holzman. When Holzman vacated the seat to successfully run for mayor in the 1991 election, Cullen, then a community association president in the ward (Glabar Park Community Alliance), ran again and won the seat in a close three-way race.
As an Ottawa City Councillor he also served jointly on the Council of the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton. In 1994 Cullen was elected as the first Regional Councillor for Bay Ward, when provincial legislation created a directly-elected Regional Council. In 1996, Cullen supported Dalton McGuinty to lead the Ontario Liberal Party (Ottawa Citizen, 2 December 1996).
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