She taught English at Victoria Park Secondary School for the North York Board of Education from September 1967 until she was elected to office in 1972.
Following an eight-year legal battle conducted by lawyer Barry Swadron QC, on behalf of Doug Bell, a resident of North York who had been charged with living with other people to whom he was not related, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld Greene's position and struck down the municipal bylaw in April 1979.
[2] Greene favoured market-value assessment reforms for Metro Toronto properties, and criticized provincial Treasurer Darcy McKeough for backing away from this proposal in 1978.
[5] She considered running against Lastman for Mayor of North York in 1980, but declined on the grounds that she did not have the financial resources to conduct a successful campaign.
[6] She did not seek re-election to the Board of Control, and instead announced that she would enrol in a Master of Public Administration (postgraduate) program at Harvard Kennedy School.
[11] She resumed her previous role as a prominent critic of Mel Lastman, arguing that his style of politics favoured backroom deals and often removed councillors from the decision-making process.
[12] Greene also called for the resignation of city planning commissioner Bruce Davidson in August 1983, arguing that his $265,000 debt to a major developer created a serious conflict-of-interest situation.
A Divisional Court judge subsequently upheld Greene's accusation, and stripped Borins of his council seat on 16 April 1985.
[19] Greene returned to political life again in 1988, narrowly winning the federal Progressive Conservative nomination for Don Valley North over Peter Ayre Phillips.
There was some media speculation that Greene would be appointed to cabinet, but she instead served in parliament as a backbench supporter of Brian Mulroney's government.
[26] Her committee's report on violence, entitled "The War Against Women", was supported by the prime minister and opposition parties, but opposed by some Progressive Conservative backbenchers on the grounds that its title was "confrontational and inflammatory".
Critics expressed concern that the proposed changes would threaten the universality of these programs, and reduce benefits for vulnerable middle-income families.
Gerard Kennedy, the director of Toronto's Daily Bread Food Bank, said that her comments reflected a "superficial analysis" of hunger issues in Canada.
The Progressive Conservatives were resoundingly defeated in the 1993 federal election, and Greene lost to Liberal candidate Sarkis Assadourian by a significant margin in a rematch from 1988.
[40] She attempted a political comeback as a provincial Progressive Conservative candidate in a 1997 by-election, but was defeated by Liberal David Caplan in the North York riding of Oriole.
Greene's pregnancy in 1978 received significant media attention not only because of the novelty, at the time, of being a pregnant female politician but because she was unmarried and declined to name the father.