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Barbara Hall was the 68th mayor of Toronto, the last to run Toronto before it became a megacity. She was elected mayor of the pre-amalgamation City of Toronto in 1994, and held office until 1997. The municipal elections of 1997, however, were for the amalgamated "megacity". Although Hall won the majority of the vote in old Toronto, York and East York, she lost narrowly to former North York mayor Mel Lastman, who had a very strong base of support in North York, as well as Etobicoke and Scarborough.
Hall studied at the University of Victoria, and Osgoode Hall Law School. In 1980, she was admitted to the Bar of Upper Canada.
Barbara Hall had been a member of the New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP), but when she ran for mayor in 1994 and 1997 she did so as a non-aligned candidate backed by supporters from various parties. In 2003 she ran for mayor again, and was strongly backed by supporters of the Ontario Liberal Party. She was widely considered an unofficial Liberal candidate whilst David Miller, an NDP city councillor, was considered an unofficial NDP candidate and John Tory was an unofficial Progressive Conservative candidate. Despite being the front-runner at the campaign's start, as well as garnering strong support from the city's ethnic press, Hall wound up placing a distant third behind the winner, David Miller and runner-up John Tory.
See also: 2003 Ontario municipal elections
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