Martha Hall Findlay - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Born in Toronto, Hall Findlay lived in York Mills, attending the Toronto French School until Grade 8 when she was 13 and her parents separated. She moved with her mother to Thornbury, at the base of the Blue Mountains, east of Owen Sound. She skipped three grades (9, 10 and 11) to enter Grade 12 at Georgian Bay Secondary School in Meaford, and graduated from high school at 15.

Hall Findlay was overall silver medallist in the 1976 Canadian Ski Championship, and was named to the national training squad before retiring from competition to concentrate on her education. She graduated in international relations from the University of Toronto, and in law from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. Through university, she worked as a waitress, carpenter and ski race coach; while completing law school, she co-owned and operated two retail stores, living above the Yonge St. store.

While in the International Relations Program she married Doug Findlay and, in her second year in 1981, gave birth to her first child, Katie. At Osgoode Hall Law School, she had two more children, Everett in '83 and Patrick in '85, receiving her LL.B. in 1987. At the same time her mother went back for her university degree at age 60.

In Hall Findlay's professional career she worked for six years practicing corporate and commercial law at the Toronto offices of international law firm Baker & McKenzie, served as general counsel and executive for Bell Mobility and Mobility Canada, and later served as vice-president and general counsel for The Rider Group. After moving to Collingwood, Ontario in 1996, she founded The General Counsel Group, a legal and management consulting firm working primarily in the high-tech and telecommunications fields in Canada and Europe. In 2007, she joined the law firm of Gowlings Lafleur Henderson LLP as counsel. After losing her seat in the 2011 election Hall Findlay became the Chief Legal Officer at EnStream LP and an Executive Fellow at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy.