Career
She was a New Democratic Party member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1990 to 1995. She represented the riding of Portuguese Arthur. She served as a cabinet minister in the government of Bob Rae.
As of 2014 she is the president of the Alberta Liberal Party.
She stepped down in order to run in Calgary-Currie as a Liberal candidate in the 2015 provincial election. Wark-Martyn was a social worker and registered nurse before entering political life.
In 1987 she received an injury in the workplace that ended her nursing career. She received a small disability pension from the Worker"s Compensation Board.
She was elected to the Ontario legislature in the 1990 provincial election, defeating incumbent Liberal Taras Kozyra by 1,034 votes in the Northern Ontario riding of Portuguese Arthur.
In November, Wark-Martyn introduced a bill to ensure that GST would not be stacked on top of provincial tax In December, she was featured as part of "Women of the Year" on the cover of Chatelaine magazine along with ten other women cabinet ministers. During her tenure as Revenue minister she dealt with such issues as a proposed market value assessment property tax system for Toronto, giving tax breaks to border communities to stem the flow of cross border shoppers and collecting tax on goods that shoppers bring back across the border.
She also studied a possible harmonization of the GST with provincial sales tax
In the latter case, this wasn"t adopted until 2010. In February 1993, Bob Rae drastically reduced the size of his cabinet.
The Revenue Minister position was abolished and Wark-Martyn was transferred to Minister without portfolio responsible for Education and Training, assisting Education Minister Dave Cooke. On June 17, 1993, she was reassigned as a minister without portfolio responsible for health, assisting Health Minister Ruth Grier.
In early 1995, Wark-Martyn announced that Lakehead University and Confederation College would be receiving almost one million dollars in grants to develop programs and services to aboriginal people.
The NDP were defeated in the provincial election of 1995, and Wark-Martyn lost her seat to Liberal Michael Gravelle by almost 7,000 votes. Cabinet positions
In 1997 she was elected to the Thunder Bay municipal council in 1997. In 1999, she was appointed to the Capital Regional Health Board.
In 2004, Wark-Martyn began working in Calgary, Alberta for Bayshore Home Health, a home-delivery health-care service.
Before this, she had worked in sales marketing for The Pampered Chef. She became involved in the Alberta Liberal Party, eventually running for the presidency of the party and winning that position in May 2014.
She is the party"s candidate for the electoral district of Calgary-Currie in the 2015 provincial election.
