The 2024 President’s Award of Recognition was presented to
CYNTHIA MACDOUGALL
in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the advancement of Land Economics
The 2024 President’s Award of Recognition was presented to Cynthia MacDougall at the Simcoe Chapter’s Annual Meeting held at the Royal Canadian Military Institute on January 14, 2025.
Cynthia MacDougall is Senior Counsel of McCarthy Tetrault’s Toronto office and head of the firm’s Municipal Group.
Cynthia is one of the most experienced and successful municipal approval lawyers in Ontario. Her practice focuses on the areas of municipal, land use planning and environmental law, specifically as it relates to infrastructure and complex multi-phase development projects, often with challenging approval constraints and environmental issues. She practices extensively in front of the Ontario Land Tribunal, Committees of Adjustment, and municipal Councils and committees, representing institutions, private developers and non-profit organizations.
Cynthia works with members of city councils and senior governmental staff at the municipal, provincial and federal levels of government, particularly in the Greater Toronto Area. She provides advice on major infrastructure projects in Ontario and has been the municipal lawyer on many landmark and precedent setting projects across the GTA. She is the original author of the PLAA Table for Ontario P3 projects.
Cynthia received a B.A.A. in Urban and Regional Planning from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in 1980 and her LL.B. from the University of Toronto in 1984. She was called to the Ontario bar in 1986 and is a member of the Municipal Section, Canadian Bar Association (Ontario).
Cynthia is past-chair of the Toronto Parks and Trees Foundation, past-president and past-director of the Neighbourhood Information Post, as well as a former director of the Wood Green Community Centre, the Scarborough Distress Centre and Sistering.
PREVIOUS WINNERS OF THE PRESIDENT’S AWARD:
2023 Lindsay Dale-Harris
2022 Leslie M. Klein
2021 Douglas R. Annand
2020 Robert G. Glover
2019 Ian James Lord
2018 Robert E. Millward
2017 John W. Livey
2016 Robert W. McBride
2015 Robert E. Jarvis, QC*
2014 Susan de Avellar Schiller
2013 Edward J. Levy
2012 Raymond J. Simpson*
2011 Frank A. Clayton
2010 Neal A. Irwin
2009 H. Ian Macdonald
2008 Larry S. Bourne
2007 Stanley B. Heidman*
2006 Diana L. Santo*
2005 Kenneth Rotenberg*
2004 Eberhard H. Zeidler*
2003 Len Gertler*
*deceased
