Maria Mc Rae - First Mandate

First Mandate

She ran on a fiscally conservative platform opposing tax hikes and voted against a tax increase the first year, but faced with the significant budget shortfall she was forced to abandon this pledge. She also was criticized for paying Stewart $4000 dollars in consulting fees.

On November 9, 2005, McRae did not vote in favour of a pesticide bylaw that was promoted by the Canadian Cancer Society and the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO). In the period leading up to the vote, McRae was implicated in email incident. It was the daughter of a woman retired federal intelligence analyst who discovered McRae's wrongdoing, when the daughter received an acknowledgement from Councillor Cullen on which the content of her pro-bylaw e-mail was changed to read the opposite. Allegedly, the daughter's predicament was not unique, as there were about 40 other e-mails that were similarly altered. Evidently, Maria McRae had been involved by having written an email whereby she impersonated Councillor Alex Cullen by placing his name on a pro-pesticide e-mail petition conducted by a pro-pesticide website, propertyrights.ca. Alex Cullen, who in fact supports a strong pesticide bylaw, replied to McRae stating: "I must tell you that I am doubly disappointed to learn that you, a council colleague, used my name to author a message you knew did not represent my position and then, when the matter became public more than three weeks ago, you did not acknowledge your role in this matter, neither to me nor to the public."

The City of Ottawa's investigation into propertyrights.ca that implicated McRae reportedly cost the city about $1,500 in overtime. The investigation cleared McRae of any intentional wrongdoing with Chief Corporate Services Officer Greg Geddes stating that McRae's actions were nothing more than an "innocent mistake."

McRae subsequently apologized to City Council stating "I'm very sorry." Alex Cullen accepted McRae's apology and said he would now put the issue behind him.

She was the Chair of Ottawa Community Housing Corporation from 2004 until 2006 – the province of Ontario’s second largest landlord with 50,000 tenants living in more than 15,000 units of housing stock worth more than $2B. She was Vice-Chair of the Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee from 2003-2006.