Margaret A. Mitchell was born in Ontario and trained as a social worker at McMaster University, the University of Toronto, and UBC. She worked for the International Red Cross in Japan, Korea and Australia. During the 1970s she was employed as a community development worker with the Neighbourhood Services Association and was also active in a number of other organizations, including the Strathcona Property Owners and Tenants Association, Status of Women Action Committee, Adanac Co-operative Association, Britannia Community Services Centre and the Unemployed Citizens' Welfare Improvement Council. From 1979 to 1993 Mitchell was the New Democratic Party MP for Vancouver East. She was the first politician to raise the issue of violence against women in the House of Commons, and the first MP to raise the issue of the Chinese Head Tax, in 1984. Mitchell received an Order of British Columbia in 2000. She published a memoir entitled No Laughing Matter: Adventure, Activism & Politics in 2008 (Granville Island Publishers).