Ellen Woodsworth

Ellen Woodsworth is a social activist and politician based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She is the founder and chair of Women Transforming Cities International Society.

Woodsworth sat on the Vancouver city council for six years, co-founding initiatives such as the World Peace Summit and Women Transforming Cities Society. She has championed issues such as affordable housing and homelessness, electoral reform, environmental sustainability, women's rights, seniors' rights, LGTTBQ rights, racism, free trade, and economic equality.

Born in Toronto, Ontario, to Jean and Ken Woodsworth, Woodsworth went to the Canadian Academy for high school in Japan, where her father was born and raised, before returning to Canada to complete her BA at the University of British Columbia.

Woodsworth is the great-niece of J. S. Woodsworth, founder and first leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, and cousin of former New Democratic Party MP Grace MacInnis.

After earning her degree she co-founded and edited a women's newspaper titled The Other Woman in Toronto and created CORA the Women's Liberation Bookmobile with Judity Quinlan. In 1974, Woodsworth helped found the Toronto Wages for Housework Campaign. She moved to London, England to work with the International Wages for Housework Campaign in 1975.

In 1979, Woodsworth was part of a national group that forced Canada to include unpaid work in the 1996 census. Woodsworth also chaired the BC Action Canada Network, which opposed the free trade agreements. She was hired as a social planner by the District of North Vancouver to document the child care needs of the district. Woodsworth was elected chair of Britannia Community Services Centre. She was on the Board of REACH Community Health Clinic coming up with the logo “community health in community hands” to support neighbourhood health services.

She served as chair of the Bridge Housing Society. Woodsworth also sat on the inaugural board of the LGBTTQ Generations Project. Woodsworth has been active in protests against the Kinder Morgan Pipeline and Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline.

In 2002, Woodsworth was elected a Vancouver City Councillor. She was immediately appointed the Vancouver representative to the Executive of the Union of BC Municipalities, and the Executive of the Lower Mainland Treaty Advisory Council. She was the first openly lesbian city councillor in Canada.

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