Barbara Hall
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Barbara Hall is a Canadian lawyer and politician. She 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.
Hall was defeated in the 1997 elections for mayor of the amalgamated "megacity". Although she 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. Shortly after graduation she worked in the small Nova Scotia community of Three Mile Plain as one of the first members of the Company of Young Canadians. She studied law at Osgoode Hall Law School, and in 1980, was admitted to the Law Society 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, Miller and runner-up John Tory.
- See also: 2003 Ontario municipal elections
| Preceded by: June Rowlands 1991–1993 | Mayor of Toronto 1994–1997 | Succeeded by: Mel Lastman 1998–2003 |