Meet a Community Elder: Carol Seglins

An educator, politician and justice of the peace, Carol Seglins is best known for her lifelong dedication to community service. “Involvement in my community is in my DNA. It’s something that I was conditioned to from an early age,” she says.

Carol currently serves on the board of the Caledon Seniors Centre and the Albion Bolton Historical Society, and she is president of the Caledon arm of the Humber Valley Heritage Trail Association.

While born in Toronto, Carol and her five siblings spent their childhoods in Sudbury. Her father was a doctor and her mother had been a VON nurse.

After high school, Carol enrolled at the University of Toronto where she pursued an arts degree. But by her second year, she and her husband, Andrejs, had two children, and Carol switched directions, took a couple of courses in education, and landed a job teaching math in King City.

Carol Seglins served three terms as Caledon’s mayor, from 1994 to 2003. Photo by Pete Paterson.

Two more children followed after the Seglins purchased a home in old Bolton where Carol still lives.

Through the turmoil of a devastating car accident that seriously injured one of her sons, and the death of her husband not long afterward, Carol managed somehow to fit in the necessary hours to earn a business degree from York University. “Although there were very few hours of sleep during those years, that degree served me well during my years in the travel business.”

Carol jumped into the political arena in 1988. With the encouragement of her partner, Ralph Ransom, she won a seat as a Peel regional councillor for Caledon.  “It was definitely an ‘on the job’ learning experience, but one I thoroughly enjoyed,” she says. “The step up to mayor after six years at the region seemed like a natural transition.”

Carol served three terms as Caledon’s mayor, from 1994 to 2003. That was followed by 12 years as an Ontario justice of the peace.

Asked about the current tumultuous political events in Caledon, Carol says, “I’m most concerned about the efforts underway to split up the Region of Peel. This initiative means that the days of our countryside way of life are severely numbered.”

At 80, Carol’s heart is still in the health and well-being of her beloved Caledon.