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©
Copyright © 2004-2020 Dawn E. Monroe. All rights reserved. |
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The names appearing are just a fraction of the Canadian
women of accomplishment.
Check out The Famous Canadian Women 's
section ON THE JOB
which contains mini profiles of 3000
Canadian Women of Achievement.
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Lady Helena E.
Squires.
née Strong. Born Little Bay Islands, Newfoundland 1879.
The strong twin sisters were educated at a boarding school
in St John’s and later at Mount Allison University. You would
think that being the wife of the Premier of the Province and mother of
seven children would have been enough work for anyone. However Lady
Squires was a social activist who worked to found a teachers college and
a maternity hospital.
She was the 1st woman elected to the
Newfoundland House of Assembly.
When Newfoundland entered Confederation
in 1949 she was elected the 1st president of the provincial Liberal
Association. |
Helen Gregory MacGill
Born Hamilton, Ontario
January 7, 1864. Died February 27, 1947.
She was the 1st woman to graduate from Trinity College of the University
of Toronto. When she settled with her young family in British Columbia
she was the first woman of the region to be appointed a judge of the
juvenile Court, a post she held for 23 years. |
1910's |
Anna Minerva
Henderson
Born
1887, Saint John, New Brunswick. Died July 21, Saint John, New
Brunswick. It was not common for all girls to graduate from high school
let along a Black girl. After High School, Anna attended Norman School
in Halifax to earn her teaching certificate. She was only allowed to
teach in the Black community. She returned to school to study at
business College. She then tried the Civil Service examinations and
placed third over all those writing the exam.
In 1912 she became the 1st Black
Canadian appointed the permanent federal civil Service.
She began with working at the Dominion Lands Branch of the Department of
the Interior. In 1938 she was the principal clerk in the Immigration
Branch of the Department of Mines and Resources. She enjoyed writing
poetry in her time off work. She had her verse published in various
Canadian magazines and she also had an occasional column in the
Ottawa Journal called Citadel which was dedicated to poetry. She
retired from the federal Civil Service in 1945 and returned from Ottawa
to Saint John, New Brunswick where she worked as a stenographer in a law
firm and for awhile worked in Washington D.C. In 1967 she published a
chapbook of her Citadel Columns from the newspaper and this may indeed
be the 1st
collection of poems published by an Afro-Canadian woman. She continued
her formal learning after her retirement by taking creative writing
courses at the University of New Brunswick.
Source:
Herstory: The Canadian Women's calendar. 2008 (Saskatoon
Women's Calendar Collective / Coteau Books, 2007) |
Alice Jane Jamieson.
née
Jukes. Born July 14, 1860, New York City, New York, U.S.A. Died June
4, 1949, Calgary, Alberta. Shortly after her birth the family moved
to Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. ON March 8 1882, she married Reuben
Rupert Jamieson in Springfield, Ohio. The couple would have five
children, four of whom survived infancy. The settled 1st
in Toronto
and
the Canadian Pacific Railroad posted Reuben to Smith Fall, Ontario
prior to sending him in 1902 as general superintendent of the
Western Division of the CPR to Calgary. He became interested in
local politics and served as Mayor of Calgary in 1909/10. After his
death in 1911 Alice became deeply involved in local women’s groups.
She was a founding member of the Calgary YWCA, and supported such
women’s demands such as the right to vote.
In 1914 she was appointed as a judge to juvenile Court, the 1st
woman in the British Empire to hold such a position.
In December 1916 she became magistrate of the Calgary Women’s Court.
In 1917 she won a Supreme Court case which questioned if a woman
could serve in the office of Magistrate. This was quite contentious
as women were still not considered ‘persons’ at this time. She was
the 1st president and the driving force behind the Local
council of Women, as well she was active in the Women’s Musical Club
and the General Hospital Auxiliary. The Alice Jamieson Girl’s
Academy is the only single gender school in the Calgary School
Board.
Sources: Kay Sanderson, 200 Remarkable Alberta Women, (Famous
5 Foundation, 1999) online (accessed July 2015); Alice Jamieson
alicejamieson.yolaste.com (accessed July 2015)
|
Jean Ethel
MacLachlan.
Born 1875 Nova Scotia. Died 1963 Vancouver, British Columbia. She worked
as a school teacher in Nova Scotia for 15 years before moving to
Saskatchewan. In her new home in 1909 she was a social worker , an
inspector of foster homes and by 1916 was the superintendent of
neglected children. In 1917 she was
appointed Juvenile Court Judge for Saskatchewan, the 1st person, male or
female to hold this position in the province.. She was also appointed a
Justice of the Peace, the 1st woman in Canada to hold such a position.
She would hear over 5,000 cases with only 13 appeals and in that only 6
reversals. During her tenure she traveled, much of the time by
horse and buggy, 25,000 miles annually . She enjoyed playing golf,
tennis and badminton. She would donate a cup for the Girls’ uner-18
tournament at the Lakeshore Tennis Club in Regina. She worked with her
United Church, the women’s Canadian Club, the Regina Orchestral Society,
the Saskatchewan Social Service Council and the Canadian Association of
Child Protection Agencies. Regina commemorated her achievements by
naming MacLachlan Crescent in her honour.
Source: City of Regina. Heritage & History Online. (Accessed January
2012. |
Hannah 'Annie'
Elizabeth Gale
née
Rolinson. Born December 29, 1876 West Midlands, England. Died August 7,
1970, Vancouver, British Columbia. Although she qualified to study at
Oxford University she was able to attend and began working in the family
business instead of going to university. In 1901 Annie, as she was
known, married and engineer, William Gale. In 1912 the young couple
along with their two sons immigrated to Calgary Alberta. Annie became
involved in community life. She enjoyed sports and was captain of the
women’s cricket team. She organized Canada’s 1st Women’s
Ratepayers Association and in
December 10, 1917
she ran successfully for municipal elections supported by
the Women’s Ratepayers. She was the 1st
women in the British Empire to become an alderman.
In 1918 she was elected by fellow councilors as acting mayor and became
the 1st woman mayor in the British Empire. In 1921 she was
unsuccessful in her attempt to be elected to the Alberta provincial
legislature. Annie retired from council after three successful terms in
office in 1923. In 1925 she moved to Vancouver for her husband’s health.
In 1983 a new school, the Annie Gale Junior High School was opened in
Calgary.
Source
Merna Forster, Annie Gale (1876-1970) Heroines.ca (Accessed May
2015) ; Annie Gale, Alberta Champions Online (Accessed May 2015)
Book: Judith Lishman, Alderman Mrs Annie Gale (Ottawa, 1985)
Suggestion submitted by Mrs. Frances J. Welwood, Nelson, British
Columbia |
Emily Murphy. Born
Cookstown, Ontario 1868. Died March 14,1933. Emily was journalist who
would write about
the
adventures of the famous "Janey Canuck" character.
She became the
1st woman in the
British Empire to become a Magistrate when she was
appointed a police magistrate for Edmonton, Alberta in 1916.
She would go on to also be provincial magistrate for
Alberta. A
supporter of some 20 volunteer organizations
she was the 1st
national president of the Federated Women’s Institutes of
Canada.
She is also a member of the Famous Five who would be part of
the Persons Case in 1929 which would have women declared "persons" in
the eye of the law. If you watch the "Historical Moments" which appear
on Canadian TV be sure to watch for her story.
|
Roberta Catherine MacAdams.
Born July 21, 1880, Sarnia, Ontario. Died December 16, 1959, Calgary,
Alberta. Roberta was a graduate from Macdonald Institute of the Ontario
Agricultural College, Guelph, Ontario (Now University of Guelph.) In
1912 she was hired by the Alberta Government to offer “institute”
courses for rural women across the province. As well the Alberta
Department of Agriculture had her conduct a survey to determine the
viability of a provincial Women’s Institute. Roberta was what was called
a new woman participating in society out of the home in non-traditional
ways through education, employment and civic engagement. In 1914-1916
she worked for the Edmonton Public School Board creating the 1st
Department of Domestic Economy (Home economics) in Alberta. In 1916 she
left her job to serve as a lieutenant during World War l. She served as
a dietitian in the Canadian Military Hospital in Orpington, England. In
1917 the Alberta Military Representation Act allowed the 38,000 Alberta
soldiers and 75 nurses overseas to elect 2 representative to the
Provincial legislature.
On September 17, 1917 Robert Pearson and Roberta MacAdams were elected.
Roberta was the second woman in the Empire after fellow Albertan Louise
McKinney to be elected to office. In 1918 she became the 1st
woman in the British Empire to introduce legislation when she brought
forward a bill to incorporate the War Veterans Next of Kin Association
Bill. After the 1st
legislative session she was back in Britain with the Khaki University
which provided women’s staff for continuing education for overseas
Canadian forces. Back in Alberta in 1919 she served as district Director
of the Soldiers Land Settlement Board. After this position Roberts
married lawyer Harvey Price and was less prominent in the public eye.
Source: Our Future, Our
Heritage. The Alberta Heritage Digitization Project. Online
(Accessed May 2014) ; Roberta MacAdams and the New Woman.
Alberta’s Women’s Institute. Online (Accessed May 2014). |
Sarah
Ramsland Scythes.
née McEwen. Born July 19,1882 Minnesota, U.S.A. Died Regina,
Saskatchewan April 4, 1964. In 1906 she married Magnus Ramsland. The
couple settled in Saskatchewan and raised a family of three children.
When her husband died of the Spanish flu in
1918, family convinced
her to run for his vacant seat in a Saskatchewan by-election.
She became the 1st woman elected to the Saskatchewan legislature.
The law had been changed only in 1917 which allowed women to run.
She would serve a Pelly area member of the legislative Assembly until
1925. She was a staunch defender of her constituents’ need and was the
first MLA to suggest marking sites of historical interest in the
province. Upon leaving politics Sarah she became a librarian
establishing Saskatchewan’s traveling library program. After marrying
William George Franklin Scythes in 1942 she turned her energies into
community activities and volunteer work.
Source: City of Regina. Heritage & History Online. (Accessed January
2012.; Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan online (Accessed January 2012)
|
Minnie Bell
Adney.
(née
Sharp) Born January 12, 1865, Woodstock, New Brunswick. Died April 11,
1937. In 1883 she took training in piano and voice in New York City,
U.S.A. On September 12, 1899 she married Edwin Tappan Adney (1868-1950)
an artist and writer. The couple raised one son but the marriage meant
long periods of separation for the family. Minnie used her musical
talents to run the Woodstock School of Music for two decades. She became
interested in women's rights and politics and would become the
1st woman
candidate in a federal election in New Brunswick.
She attempted to run as an independent candidate in a federal
by-election in
October 1919
in the riding of Victoria Carleton. Even though women by this
time had the right to vote had just recently been allowed to run for
political positions and in this by-election her name did not appear on
the ballot because her papers had been “lost” and she was disqualified
as a candidate. In the 1921 general election she was unable to raise the
$200.00 fee required to register her nomination. Her name finally
appeared on the ballot for the 1925 Federal General Election but she
only received 84 votes. Source:
New Brunswick Womens’ History ww.nbwomenshistory.ca (Accessed March
2012) |
Mary Ellen
Smith.
(née
Spear) Born October 11, 1863, Tavistock, England. Died May 3,
1933, Vancouver,
British Columbia . She taught for awhile and then married Ralph Smith a
widower and a coal miner by profession. The couple settled in British
Columbia and Ralph was elected to serve in the Provincial and
federal governments. Mary Ellen supported her husband political
career and even gave speeches on his behalf. She was a member of the
suffrage League of Canada, president of the Women’s Canadian Club
of the Women’s Forum. She served as a regent of the Imperial Order of
the Daughter’s of the Empire, and was an executive member of the
Canadian Red Cross. When her husband died in 1917 she entered politics
herself and successfully won her husband’s former seat in a by election
in
January
1918. She was re-elected in 1920 and again in 1924. She was
the 1st female Member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia,
and in
March 1921 she became the 1st woman cabinet
minister in the British Empire,
and the 1st woman speaker of the House in the
British Empire, serving as minister without portfolio, March to November
1921. An advocate of British
Columbia's first mothers' pensions and Female Minimum Wage acts. In
1929, she was appointed Canada's delegate to the
International
Labour Organization conference in
Geneva,
Switzerland. She served as president of the BC Liberal Party in the
early 1930s
Sources:
Vancouver Hall of Fame Online (Accessed November 2012. : The
Canadian Encyclopedia online (Accessed November 2012)
|
Nellie
Letitia McClung.
née Mooney. Born October
20, 1873 Chatsworth, Ontario. Died September 1, 1951. At 16 she attended
Normal School (Teacher’s college) in Winnipeg, Manitoba. While teaching,
she was introduced to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union by her
future Mother-in-law. Marrying Wes McClung, 1896 they raised five
children. As an accomplished writer, she joined the Canadian Women’s
Press Club. In 1912, a founding member of the Political Equity League,
she helped female wage earners. She imitated Manitoba Provincial Premier
Roblin in the 1914 “Women’s Parliament” mocking the idea of giving votes
to men! She was the only woman delegate at the Canadian War Conference
of 1918 and was a Methodist delegate to the world ecumenical Congress of
1921, where she advocated women as clergy. She represented her ideas as
a member of Alberta’s legislature 1921-1925 and in 1927 she was one of
the “Famous Five”, who forced the courts to recognize women as “Persons”
in 1929. The 1st woman to be appointed
to the Board of Directors, Canadian Broadcasting Network,
1936 she was also a Canadian representative to the League of
Nations, 1938. A popular author, she wrote newspaper and magazine
articles, columns, short stories and published 16 books and 2
autobiographies. |
Louise
Crummy McKinney.
Born
September 22, 1868 Frankville, Ontario. Died July 10, 1931 Claresholm,
Alberta. Like many young women of her era Louise attended Normal School
(Teacher’s College) in Ottawa. She taught for 7 years in Ontario and
then in North Dakota, U.S.A. In 1895 she married James McKinney. By
1903 the couple and their son settled in Claresholm, Alberta. She had
joined the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) while in the U.S.
and founded a local chapter when she arrived in Claresholm. She played a
prominent role at the local, provincial and national levels of the WCTU
for the next 20 years. In 1931 she became acting national president and
vice-president at the international level. She was also active in the
Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire (I.O.D.E.).
She was the 1st women to be sworn into the
Alberta Legislative Assembly. Louise and Roberta Adams (1880-1959) were
the 1st women elected to a legislature in the British Empire and on June
7, 1917 Louise was sworn in before Roberta to became the 1st
woman to take her seat in the legislature.
She fought for laws to aid immigrants, widows, and separated women.
Active in her Methodist Church she was the only woman from Western
Canada and 1 of only 4 across Canada to sign the Basis of Union of the
United Church of Canada in 1925. She was the 2nd woman to sign the
famous “Persons” act which lead to women in Canada being able to be
considered “persons” She is one of the group now called “The Famous
Five”. In 1939 she was recognized as a Person of National Historic
Significance by the Canadian government. In
2009 the Senate of Canada voted to name the 'Famous Five' as Canada’s 1st
honorary senators. A plaque
commemorating this in found at the Post Office, Highway 4 south at the
Canada-United States border, Claresholm, Alberta. There is an Alberta
Post Secondary Scholarship offered in her honour.
Sources: Louise Crummy McKinney,
Collections Canada, Library and Archives Canada Online (Accessed for
update 2010); The life of Louise McKinney, St Thomas University. Online
Accessed 2010) |
1920's
|
Constance
Easton Hamilton.
Born 1862 Yorkshire, England. Died, Toronto, Ontario 1945.
Constance migrated to Canada in 1888 with her family. The family
settled in Vancouver where Constance met and married A Canadian
Pacific Railroad manager, Lauchlan Alexander Hamilton (1852-1941). The
couple were transferred first to Winnipeg and then in 1899 to Toronto.
She was a staunch supporter of women’s suffrage and was President of the
Equal Rights League of Toronto. She frequently represented Canadian
Suffragists in other countries. She was an active volunteer with
numerous associations including the Big Sisters and the YWCA. She
chaired the Toronto Branch of the National Refugee Committee and worked
with the National Council of Women as chair of the Agricultural
Committee. Once women had the right to vote and could run for municipal
office she became
the 1st woman elected to the Toronto City
Council. She was sworn in on January 12, 1920 with no
cameras to record the event and no mention in the mayor’s inaugural
address. She was re-elected in 1921. After two years in public office
she retired to continue her campaign work for the rights of women,
underprivileged people, including immigrants and refugees to the city.
She also served on the board of Women’s Century Magazine. In
1979 The Toronto City Council established an award in her name
commemorating the Privy Council Decision of 1929 requiring the federal
government to recognize women as “persons”. The women members of Toronto
City Council select the recipient of the Constance E. Hamilton Award.
Source: City
of Toronto online
http://www.toronto.ca (Accessed 2010) ;
“Toronto Pioneer mostly forgotten” by Mark Mahoney, Toronto Star,
March 10, 2007. |
Edith
MacTavish Rogers.
Born April 26, 1876, Norway House, Rupert’s Land (Now Manitoba). Died
April 19, 1947, Colborne,
Ontario.
Edith was a Métis born into a family of Hudson Bay Company Officers,
Edith spent her youth living in Montreal. She attended Sacred Heart
Sedith MacTavish Roger school of Montreal and the Trafalgar School for
Girls. Moving back to her home in Manitoba she married businessman
Rupert Rogers on June 1, 1898. The couple have 4 children. During World
War l she played a leadership role in
Winnipeg’s efforts on behalf of soldiers’ families with needs. She
continued her efforts at the end of the war helping families of
returning soldiers.
June 29, 1920 she became the 1st woman elected to the
Manitoba Provincial Legislature.
She was a member of the Liberal Party and elected to her seat in the
legislature 3 times before she retired in 1932. She was an advocate for
reforming the Child Welfare
Act of Manitoba making it easier for women to access financial support
to care for their children. She was also the 1st female
member of the Board of the Winnipeg General Hospital. Edith moved to
Colborne, Ontario in 1942.
|
Mary Ellen
Smith.
(née Spear).
Born Tavistock, England October 11, 1863. Died May 3, 1933. After
the death of her political husband in 1917 she ran in the by-election
for his seat and
in 1921 became
the 1st woman elected to the
British Columbia provincial legislature and the first woman Cabinet
Minister in the entire British Empire.
She resigned from Cabinet in 1922 but remained as MPP until 1928. |
Mary Irene Parlby
née Marryat. Born January 9, 1868 London, England. Died
July 12, 1965 Red Deer, Alberta. Irene immigrated to Canada in 1896. In
1913 she helped found the 1st women's local of the United Farmers of
Alberta. serving as president from 1916 through 1919.
In 1921 she was elected to a seat in the Alberta
provincial legislature a position she led for 14 years. and
was the 1st woman appointed to the Alberta
Cabinet and only the 2nd in Canada. She was
one of the 'Famous Five' who put focus on the 'Persons Case' in 1929.
which lead to women being legally declared 'persons'. She was a strong
advocate for the eugenics movement in the province which included the
sexual sterilization of the mentally infirm. She was a Canadian
delegate to the League of Nations in 1930. In 1966 she was
recognized as a Person of National Historic Significance by the Canadian
government with an historic plaque in Alix, Alberta. The 'Persons Case'
has been recognized as a National Historic Event. In October 2009,
the Canadian Senate voted to name all of the 'Famous Five' as the 1st
honorary senators.
Edmonton, Alberta boasts of a mural in her
honour. |
Agnes Campbell Macphail.
Born March 24, 1890 Preston Township, Grey County, Ontario. Died
February 13, 1954 Toronto, Ontario. Like many young women of her era she
attended Normal School (Teacher’s College) after high school. She taught
in numerous schools in Ontario and Alberta.
She was the 1st and only woman
elected to the Canadian parliament in 1921 when women finally had the
right to vote.
A
pacifist she was a member of the Women’s International League for Peace
and Freedom and in 1929 she became the 1st
woman nominated to the
Canadian delegation to the League of Nations
(forerunner to the United Nations). As
the 1st woman to inspect Kingston Penitentiary,
it
left her a lifelong advocate for better conditions of women
in prison. In 1935 the Royal Commission to Investigate the Penal System
in Canada and the 1939 Penitentiary Bill with 88 recommendations for
change were no doubt influenced by her efforts. She became a founding
member of the C.C.F., Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (forerunner
of the National Democratic Party). Losing her federal seat in the 1940
election, she toured giving lectures and wrote for the Toronto Globe
and Mail newspaper before turning her attention to provincial
politics. December 6, 1943 she was 1 of 2
women elected to the Ontario Legislative Assemble
where she continued to support farmers,
industrial workers, prison inmates and women’s rights.
In
1951 she saw the passage of the 1st equal pay legislation in
the province.
She was also the founder of the Elizabeth Fry
Society of Canada which even today works to give help to women in need.
She died just prior to have been offered a seat in the Canadian senate.
Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia Online Accessed 2001);
Agnes Macphail website Online (accessed 2003) |
Harriet Irene
Dunlop Prenter.
née
Dunlop. Born April 7, 1866 Eurkva, Russia. Died ???? . On September 8,
1892 she married Hector Henry Weir Prenter (1860-1945) She believed in
peace and followed her beliefs when she by became secretary of the
Canadian section of the Women’s International League for Peace and
Freedom and which became the Women’s Peace Party founded in the U.S. in
January 1915. Many women did not like the pacifist movement and chose
instead to support the war. Harriet was also a strong suffragette and a
member of the Political Equality League in Toronto. Harriet wrote about
her beliefs and her stands in the Canadian Forward, the White Ribbon
Bulletin and Women’s Century. In 1920 she started a woman’s
page in the Industrial Banner where she discussed money value of
women’s work in the home and paid wages. After Canadian women gained the
right to vote in 1917 Harriet remained interested in politics and the
advancement of equality for women. She joined the Independent Labour
Party and in December 6, 1921
federal election she was a candidate for Toronto West. Although
Unlike fellow candidate Agnes MacPhail (1890-1954) Harriet was
unsuccessful in the election it still stands that she was
one of the 1st
women to run as a candidate in a Canadian federal election.
In 1922 she became a member of the Worker’s Party of Canada and helped
with communist campaigns. In 1924 she was with the Women’s Labour League
celebrating the 1st Canadian International Women’s Day.
Sources: Hector Prenter, My Heritage Family Trees Online
(Accessed September 2014) |
1930's |
Cairine
Reay
Wilson.
(née
Mackay) Born February 4, 1885, Montreal, Quebec. Died March 3, 1962,
Ottawa Ontario. A child of an influential and wealthy family in
Montreal, Cairine grew up bilingual with a keen interest in keeping
informed with life. She often travelled with her father to Ottawa and
admired a family friend, Sir Wilfrid Laurier. In 1909 she married Norman
Wilson ( 1956) and the young couple moved to Cumberland
Township near Ottawa to have their family of 8 children.
In
1918 they retained their Cumberland property but moved to downtown
Ottawa. While her family was at home Cairine was active in her church
and the local Red cross. Once her family was growing she become more
interested in the life in Ottawa Politics and she became co-president of
the Eastern Ontario Liberal Association. On
February 15, 1930, Prime Minister William Lion Mackenzie,
appointed her as Canada’s 1st woman in the Senate.
She would prefer to be remembered for her work to serve refugees and
for being outspoken against anti-Semitism in Canada. She did not pull
punches and spoke up for what she believed. At the beginning of the
upheaval in Europe in World War ll William Lion Mackenzie King was
reluctant to accept Jewish refugees as immigrants to Canada. Cairine
worked to accept 100 orphans into Canada. A Television Historical Minute
telecast shows viewed in the 1990’s shows Wilson arguing the case for
refugees. She served as chair of the Canadian National Committee on
Refugees 1938-1948, and was Canada’s 1st woman delegate to the new
United Nations in 1949. In 1950 she was presented with the Knight of the
Legion of Honour, the highest civilian honour from France, for her work
on behalf of child refugees. In 1955 she became the 1st
woman Deputy Speaker in the Canadian Senate. A secondary School in
Orleans, located not far from the Wilson family farm in Cumberland
Township, is named in her honour. She is buried in Dale Cemetery near
her former farm and her tombstone simply reads “Appointed to the Senate
1930”
Sources
First Person, Valerie Knowles (Toronto, Dundurn Press, 1988 ;
Heroines.ca online .
;
personal
knowledge
|
Nora Frances Henderson.
Born March 9, 1897, Bicester, England. Died March 23, 1949, Hamilton,
Ontario. In 1913 Nora moved with her family to Winona, Ontario. And
finally to Hamilton, Ontario in 1917. Thinking she wanted to try writing
as a career in 1918, she took a portfolio to the Hamilton Herald
where she would work as a reporter. In 1921, she was made Womens Editor
and she urged local women to take an active interest in community
political affairs. As a result, for the 1st time, in 1919, women were
appointed to the Hamilton Hospital Board.
In 1931, she became the 1st woman elected to
Hamilton's City Council. In 1934 she
became the 1st woman in Canada elected to a city Board of Control.
In her first year as a controller she sponsored a meeting which
created Charter of Municipal Rights. She chaired the Relief Board which
acted as a court of appeal to decisions handed down by relief officials
and often handed out civic relief deficiencies from her own pocket. She
was elected to city council 16 consecutive times. She headed the polls
for Board of Control, becoming Acting Mayor during the mayor's absence.
In 1946 she caused controversy when she crossed picket lines during the
Stelco strike. In 1947, she retired to become Executive Secretary of the
Association of Children's Aid Societies of Ontario. She authored a book,
The Citizens of Tomorrow and a play Pageant of Motherhood. Up
to 2006 Hamilton’s hospital was named in her honour. In 2008 the new
Juravinski for $8.00 a week. Hospital created a Life of Service
Display on the main floor for Henderson. She was inducted into the
Hamilton Gallery of Distinction in 1990. In 2016 the Frances Henderson
Secondary High School was opened.
Source: thanks to Hamilton Public Library for information supplied.
February 2016. |
Helena Walker.
née Masters. Born 1867 Wolfeville, Nova Scotia. Died 1963, Regina,
Saskatchewan. She earned her masters degree from the Nova Scotia,
University, Halifax and in 1912 moved to the Saskatchewan to teach
school. She attended Regina Normal School (Teachers college) in 1914. In
1920 she married Ashley Walker. The couple would have two children.
Since married women could not work as teachers she had to find other
places to use her energies. In 1925 she was elected to the Regina Public
School Board and became chair in 1927.
In 1932 she became the 1st woman to not only
run but win the elected position of elected alderman for the City of
Regina.
She was always known as Alderman Mrs. Ashley Walker, she
never used her own first name. She served the city in this position for
9 years. She insisted the city hire women police officers and was
president of the Women’s Voluntary Services for World War ll. She also
served in the 1930’s and 1940’s on the Regina Public Library Board and
the welfare services Board. She was president of the Local Council of
Women, the University Women’s Club and the Women’s Canadian Club. Upon
her death the citizens of Regina learned that her first name was Helena. Source: City of
Regina. Heritage & History. Online. (Accessed January 2012.) |
Barbara Hanley.
Died January 26,
1959. On January 6, 1936,
with a margin of 13 votes, Mrs. Hanley became
the 1st woman to be elected to the
position of Mayor of a town in
Canada.
The town of Webwood,
Ontario is located some 50 miles west of Sudbury. Mrs. Hanley would
fight to ensure proper homes for the aged. Did she do a good job? She
was elected to eight consecutive terms as mayor. The voters must have
felt that she was a good mayor. |
Helena Rose Gutteridge.
Born London, England, 1879?*- Died
October 3, 1960. Helena immigrated to British Columbia in 1911. A ardent
feminist she organized the British Columbia Women's Suffrage League. She
had a sincere concern and interest in the lives and well being of
working class women and was a proponent of trade unionism. She would be
a leading personality of the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council. She
was a member of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (C.C.F)
political party and in
March 1937 she became the 1st woman member elected
to the Vancouver City Council. *
Her birth is sometimes reported as 1880. (2020) |
Nancy Hodges.
Born October 28, 1888 London, England. Died December 15, 1969
British Columbia. Nancy
graduated
from King's College at the University of London, England and began her
career as a journalist. In 1912 she immigrated to Canada with her
husband Harry Percival Hodges. The couple settled Kamloops, British
Columbia where they edited the Inland Sentinal
newspaper. She ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the provincial
legislature in 1937. Running again in1941 she was elected to the
Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. She was re-elected in 1945 and
again in 1949 and 1952. She is said to have been a skilled debater and a
stanch supporter of women's rights. In 1950
she was elected Speaker of the Legislature becoming the 1st woman in
Canada and in the British Commonwealth to hold such an office.
That year she went on a speaking tour across North America speaking to
California Business and Professional Clubs, the Canadian Federation of
Liberal Women and the Women's Canadian Clubs.
Nancy was appointed to the Canadian Senate in Ottawa in
1953, the 1st woman from British Columbia to become a Senator.
She served until her resignation in 1965.
|
Thésèse
Casgrain.
née Forget. Born July 10, 1896 Montreal,
Quebec. Died November 2, 1981.
Thérèse would marry
Pierre-Francois Casgrain and the couple raised four children. She is
remembered for her campaign for women’s right to vote (suffrage) in the
province of Québec before WW II. (Quebec, the last province to grant
women the vote, passing legislation only in 1940.) From 1928 to 1942 she
was the leader of the League for Women's Rights. In the 1930's she
hosted a popular radio show Femina. She continued a career in politics
becoming the 1st Canadian woman to lead a
provincial political party 1951-1957. In the 1960's she
was the Quebec president of the Voice of Women and was also a founder of
the League for Human Rights and the Federation des femmes du Quebec. In
1970 she was appointed to the Senate of Canada. In 1967 she was inducted
as a Officer of the Order of Canada which was promoted to Companion in
1974. In 1979 she was named one of the 1st
winners of the Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons
Case. She is considered a leading woman of 20th century
Canada. In 1985 the Canadian Post Office issued a
Thérèse Casgrain postage stamp.
In 1990 the
Thérèse Casgrain Award Volunteer Award was created by the
Liberal Government. The Award was
discontinued by the Conservative Party of Brian Mulroney but was begun
again under the Liberal government of Jean Chrètien in 2001 only to be
eliminated and repackaged as the Prime Minister's Volunteer Award by the
Conservatives under Stephen Harper. In 2016 Liberal Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau renamed the Award the
Thérèse Casgrain Lifetime Volunteer Achievement Award. From
2004 through 2012 she was commemorated on the reverse of the $50.00 bank
note along with the 'Famous Five". In 2012 the Honourable Pauline Marois,
the 1st female Premier of Quebec commemorated a statue to Idola
Saint-Jean (1880-1945) , Marie-Claire Kirkland-Casgrain (1924-2016) and
Thérèse Casgrain to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Kirkland being
made the 1st Canadian female Minister in a provincial cabinet. |
Ellen Louks Fairclough.
Born Hamilton, Ontario
January 28, 1905. Died November 13, 2004 Hamilton, Ontario. Her
1st career
was as an accountant. She owned her own firm when
she was elected to
Hamilton City
council in 1946. In 1950 she was elected to the House of Commons in
Ottawa.
She was the 1st woman to be appointed to the post of a
Cabinet Minister in the Canadian Parliament in 1957.
In 1989 she was presented with the Persons Award. In 1992 the Queen
invested her with the title "Right Honorable". She was made a Companion
in the Order of Canada in 1995. You can read about her remarkable life
in her memoirs which were published in 1995 under the title
Saturday's Child.
|
Nora Frances
Henderson.
Born Hampstead,
England 1913. Died 1949. In 1919 she began her journalist career at the
Hamilton Herald newspaper and became Women's editor in 1921. She always
encouraged women to take their place within the community and soon women
were appointed to the Hamilton Hospital Board as well as appointments to
other organizations. In 1934 Nora
became the 1st woman in
Canada elected to a city Board of Control.
She would be
elected 16 consecutive times to this position. In 1947 she retired to
become Executive Secretary of the Association of Children’s Aid
Societies of Ontario. |
1940's |
Margaret Rae
Morrison Luckock.
née
Morrison. Born October 15, 1893 Arthur, Ontario. . Died January 24,
1972. In 1914 she married tool-and-die maker Richard Luckock and the
couple settled in Toronto. A seamstress by profession she found it
difficult to find work during the Depression Years. It was also during
this time that her young daughter died of scarlet fever. Rae became a
lifelong proponent of social programs to help the poor. In 1932 she
joined the newly formed Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (C.C.F.
forerunner of the New Democratic Party NDP)
On December 6, 1943 she and Agnes
Macphail (1880-1954) became the 1st women to be elected to
the Ontario Provincial Legislature. Both women were
defeated in the election of 1945. In 1942-43 she served as president of
the Housewives and Consumers Association and was an organizer of the HCA
1948 March of a Million Names that petitioned the Canadian Government to
lower prices of consumer goods. The federal government did take some
action against milling and baking companies who had artificially fixed
the price of bread. In 1950 the HCA and other groups formed the Canadian
Congress of Women (CCW) with Rae as the founding President. She visited
Communist China and asked Russian women to visit Canada to talk to the
CCW which meant she would be denied entrance in the U.S. The last years
of her life were spent fighting Parkinson’s disease.
Source:
Margarette Rae Morrison Luckock. Collections Canada. National
Library of Canada (accessed 2005); Rae Luckock, MPP. Legislative
Assembly of Ontario. |
Gladys Grace
May Strum. Born Saskatchewan February 4, 1906. Died British Columbia August
15, 2005 A mother and a farmer’s wife she understood issues facing rural
Saskatchewan. When her husband became ill her interest in Politics
reached fulfillment. At 16 she was teaching a rural one room
schoolhouse. She would later not only attend teachers college but she
would , as a mature student, earn her B.A. and B. Ed. At the University
of Saskatchewan. While teaching she met and married Warner Strum on
November 16, 1929. The had one
daughter. At one time she traveled to New Zealand to see if it would
provide a better living condition for her ill husband. The family
remained in Saskatchewan. Gladys ran unsuccessfully to be a member of
the provincial parliament in 1938 and 1944.. She did however go on to
become
the 1st woman president of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
C.C.F. party making her the first Canadian woman to be president of a
political party in Canada. In
1945 she was elected Member of Parliament in Ottawa for Qu’Apelle,
Saskatchewan, where she sat in the House of Commons with 244 male
members. She was the first woman of the C.C.F. elected to the Canadian
Parliament. She was defeated in the 1949 election and returned to teach
in Saskatchewan. In 1952 the family moved to British Columbia in the
hops of easing Warner’s health. In 1953 she ran for parliament but6 was
again defeated. The family returned to Saskatchewan and Gladys became
principal of a school in Uranium City. By 1960 she was an elected member
of Provincial Parliament where she would vote on the famous Saskatchewan
medical Act in 1962. She and her husband returned once again to British
Columbia to be near their daughter and grandchildren in retirement.
Source: Saskatchewan Encyclopedia online August 2011 |
1950's |
Nancy Hodges.
Born October 28, 1888 London, England. Died December 15, 1969
Victoria, British Columbia. Nancy graduated from King's College at the
University of London, England and began her career as a journalist. In
1912 she immigrated to Canada with her husband Harry Percival Hodges.
The couple settled Kamloops, British Columbia where they edited the
Inland Sentinal
newspaper. She ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the provincial
legislature in 1937. Running again in1941 she was elected to the
Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. She was re-elected in 1945 and
again in 1949 and 1952. She is said to have been a skilled debater and a
stanch supporter of women's rights. In 1950
she was elected Speaker of the Legislature becoming the 1st woman in
Canada and in the British Commonwealth to hold such an office.
That year she went on a speaking tour across North America speaking to
California Business and Professional Clubs, the Canadian Federation of
Liberal Women and the Women's Canadian Clubs.
Nancy was appointed to the Canadian Senate in Ottawa in
1953, the 1st woman from British Columbia to become a Senator.
She served until her resignation in 1965. |
Charlotte
Whitton.
Born Renfrew,
Ontario March 8, 1896. Died January 25, 1975. Charlotte attended Queen’s
University, Kingston, Ontario where she enjoyed playing hockey and
earned a Master’s of Art degree. This social worker, politician, and
feminist was a colourful, energetic, outspoken, and flamboyant
individual. In the 1920’s she was a relentless crusader for professional
standards of juvenile immigrants and neglected children. She was the
spark that ignited the Canadian Council on Child Welfare. She was in
demand across North America as a lecturer on social programs. When she
became mayor of Ottawa in 1951 she was the
1st woman in Canada to be a mayor of a major metropolitan area.
In November 1950, Whitton entered Ottawa City politics when she won a
seat on what was then called the board of control. When the elected
mayor died in office the next year she succeeded him as mayor. She
was elected mayor in 1952, 1954, 1960 and again 1964. Later she served
as an alderman until 1972. As mayor she pioneered communications with
the electorate by hosting her own TV show and her own newspaper column.
Charlotte never married but lived for 32 years with her companion,
Margaret Grier (d 1947), a friend from her university days. |
Tilly Jean
Rolston.
Born February. 23, 1887, Vancouver British Columbia. Died October 12,
1953, Vancouver, British Columbia. She attended the University of
British Columbia when it was connected to McGill University,
Montreal. She left teaching to marry Frederick James Rolston in 1909 and
raised a family of three children.
Tilly worked closely with many
associations and clubs including being a director of the
Vancouver-based Pacific National Exhibition, an Honorary President of
the Women's Canadian Club, president of the Oratorio Society, Quota
Club, and the Travel Women's Club. She was also the founding chairman of
the Theatre Under the Stars, board member of the YWCA auxiliary and of
the Vancouver Symphony Society. While a homemaker she continued her
interest in politics and actually entered politics as an elected
Progressive Conservative Member of the Legislative Assembly of British
Columbia in1941. In 1951 she sat as an Independent for the remainder of
the session. She became a supporter of W.A.C. Bennett and in the
1952
British Columbia election in Vancouver-Port Grey, she was elected
as a Social Credit candidate and named education minister. She was the
second woman in British Columbia to be
appointed to the cabinet and the 1st woman in all of Canada to hold a
specific portfolio.
She was a staunch advocate education for every child.
|
Marion
Adams Macpherson
Born May
16, 1924, Moose Jaw Saskatchewan. Died 1998. Marion earned her BA at the
University of Saskatchewan and took graduate studies at the University
of Toronto prior to taking the Foreign Service exam in 1947. She was the
1st woman to join the federal Department of External Affairs
directly as a Foreign Service Officer as opposed to moving up the rank
and file as a clerk. After her 2 years of training in Ottawa she worked
in the United Nations and then the European Divisions. From 1950 -1954
she was assigned to the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC, U.S.A. She
was the 1st female officer on
the International Commission for Supervision and Control of Vietnam.
In 1958 she was assigned to Ghana
and was
the 1st Secretary of the High Commission in Accra.
In 1963 she was at the United Nations in New York, City,
U.S.A. then back to Ottawa she worked in the United Nations Division. In
1973 she was the Head of the Diplomatic Mission in Sri Lanka. For a
short time she was in Boston, Massachusetts prior to being appointed as
the Canadian Ambassador to Denmark. In 1983 she was Deputy Commander at
the National Defense College in Kingston, Ontario. She also served as
Canada’s High Commissioner to Zambia. She retired in 1988 after serving
4 decades in the Canadian Foreign Service.
Sources:
Margaret K. Weiers, Envoys Extraordinary: Women of the Canadian
Foreign Service. (Toronto; Dundurn, 1995); |
Edythe M.
Brown.
In 1936
she earned her BSc degree in Home Economics,
University of Manitoba,
Winnipeg. She then worked for the Extension Service of the
Manitoba Department of Agriculture and was active working with community
youth in local 4H groups. She also taught school on permit at Lac du
Bonnet, Manitoba and Kenora, Northern Ontario. She served as
Mayor of Lac du Bonnet
from 1953
to 1957 and was said to be Manitoba’s
1st female Mayor.
After the completion of her term, and the death of her husband Frank in
1959, she attended the University of Manitoba, served as Don of the
Women’s Residence, and received a teaching certificate. She then
returned to Lac du Bonnet as a High school teacher.
Sources:
Memorable Manitobans. Profile by Gordon Goldsborough. Online (Accessed
December 2011) |
Elizabeth
Pauline MacCallum.
Born
June 30, 1895, Marash, Turkey. Died June 12, 1985. Elizabeth’s parents
were Canadian Presbyterian missionaries serving in Turkey. The family
returned to Canada when Elizabeth was a teenager. After high school she
attended Normal School (Teacher’s College) in Calgary and from 1915-1917
she worked teaching at prairie schools before enrolling at Queen’s
University, Kingston, Ontario. By 1919 she had earned her Master’s
Degree. She attend Columbia University in New York City, New York,
U.S.A. From 1925 through 1931 she worked at New York’s Foreign
Policy Association researching and writing reports and monographs on the
Middle East. In 1931 she retreated to a 2 acre market garden in
Uxbridge, Ontario to recharge her batteries and to give herself some
relief for the intensity of concentration requiring the wearing of
hearing aids. In 1935 she wrote the book Rivalries in Ethiopia
and also gave radio talks on the subject of the Middle
East. By
1936 she was back in Ottawa working for the League of Nations and later
at the Canadian Legion’s Educational Department. In 1942 she began her
career at External Affairs Department, still focusing on the Middle
East, her work was given the highest considerations. She proposed a
division of Palestine into 2 states – one Jewish, one Arab which was
sent up to Prime Minister William Lion Mackenzie King. It was in 1947
that the United Nations General Assembly adopted the partitioning of
Palestine and 6 months later the State of Israel was formed. In
1947 the Canadian government ban against women serving as foreign
officers was lifted and Elizabeth became the foreign officer of
the
unofficial Middle East Division.
In 1954 -1956 Elizabeth became the 1st woman to go abroad as
a head of a posting at the New Canadian Legation
in Beirut, Lebanon
where she had the title of Madame Le Chargé and where she was the 1st
woman to head a diplomatic mission in Lebanon. Her deafness bothered
her to the extent that in 1956 she returned to Ottawa to head the new
Official Middle East Division. She officially retired for health reasons
in 1958 but returned, upon request, until June 30, 1960. Even then she
occasionally worked through to 1977. At 82 she was a volunteer at the
Ottawa Civic Hospital working with the hearing impaired. In 1967
she received the Medal of Service of the Order of Canada and later she
became an Officer of the Order of Canada. Sadly she never got around to
writing her memoirs.
Source:
Margaret Weiers, Envoys Extraordinary: Women of the Canadian Foreign
Service (Toronto: Dundurn, 1995) |
Elizabeth Miriam Janzen Dreger.
Born 1917 or 1918
Kitchener, Ontario. Died 1979. Elizabeth married Roderick Louis Dreger.
She was an active member of the Kitchener-Waterloo Business and
Professional Women’s Club, the Kitchener Historical Society, and the K-W
Gyrettes, She worked with the Kitchener Young Woman’s Christian
Association (YWCA) and became treasurer of the YWCA at the National
level. She was also a charter Member of the Ontario Press Council. She
served as a member of the Board of Governors at the University of
Waterloo from 1972 through 1975 and from 1967 through 1975 she was also
on the Board of Governors of Conestoga College. She was a Director of
the Pioneer Community Foundation serving as president for three years.
She was on the Research Committee of the Pioneer and Builders Section of
the Waterloo County Hall of Fame. She served as president of the Western
Ontario Progressive Conservative Women’s Association and was chair of
the PC Woman’s Advisory Committee for the province of Ontario.
In 1956 as president of the PC Women’s Association
of Canada she became the 1st woman in Canada to preside at sessions of a
national political party convention. She is a member of
the Waterloo Region Hall of Fame. Source: Waterloo
Region Hall of Fame. Online. (Accessed July 2014) (2020) |
Ruth Addison.
Born 1897. Died January 9, 2005. She graduated from the University of
Manitoba and worked her way from a lower level clerk in the Canadian
Civil Service to being an economist and then executive assistant to the
Canadian Minister of the Department of Defense Production.
In 1957 she was appointed
as the 1st woman member of the Civil Service Commission
a position she held until 1968.
Source:
Jean Bannerman, Leading Ladies of Canada (Belleville, Mika
Publishing, 1977); |
Thérèse Casgrain.
née Forget. Born July 10, 1896, Montreal, Quebec. Died November 2,
1981.
Thérèse would marry
Pierre-Francois Casgrain and the couple raised four children. She is
remembered for her campaign for women’s right to vote (suffrage) in the
province of Québec before WW II. (Quebec, the last province to grant women
the vote, passing legislation only in 1940.) From 1928 to 1942 she was the
leader of the League for Women's Rights. In the 1930's she hosted a popular
radio show Femina. She continued a career in politics becoming
the 1st Canadian woman to lead a provincial political party 1951-1957.
In the 1960's she was the Quebec president of the Voice of Women and was
also a founder of the League for Human Rights and the Federation des femmes
du Quebec. In 1970 she was appointed to the Senate of Canada. In 1967
she was inducted as a Officer of the Order of Canada which was promoted to
Companion in 1974.
In 1979 she was named one of the 1st winners of
the Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case.
She is considered a leading woman of 20th century Canada. In
1985 the Canadian Post Office issued a
Thérèse Casgrain postage stamp.
In 1990 the
Thérèse Casgrain Award Volunteer Award was created by the
Liberal Government. The Award was
discontinued by the Conservative Party of Brian Mulroney but was begun again
under the Liberal government of Jean Chrètien in 2001 only to be eliminated
and repackaged as the Prime Minister's Volunteer Award by the Conservatives
under Stephen Harper. In 2016 Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau renamed
the Award the
Thérèse Casgrain Lifetime Volunteer Achievement Award. From
2004 through 2012 she was commemorated on the reverse of the $50.00 bank
note along with the 'Famous Five". In 2012 the Honourable Pauline Marois,
the 1st female Premier of Quebec commemorated a statue to Idola Saint-Jean
(1880-1945) , Marie-Claire Kirkland-Casgrain (1924-2016) and Thérèse
Casgrain to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Kirkland being made the 1st
Canadian female Minister in a provincial cabinet. |
Blanche Margaret Meagher.
Born
January 27 1911, Halifax Nova Scotia. Died February 25, 1999, Halifax,
Nova Scotia. Margaret attended Normal School (Teacher’s College) and
taught school from 1932 through 1942. She took the Foreign Service exam
and became a pioneer Foreign Service Officer with the federal department
of External Affairs. She served in Mexico and London England.
October 22, 1958 she was the 1st
woman appointed as a Canadian Ambassador and served in Israel.
While serving as Ambassador to Austria in Vienna she
became the 1st woman to chair a Board of Governors of the
International Atomic Energy Agency. From 1969 through 1973 she served as
ambassador to Sweden. In Kenya she became
the 1st
female Canadian High Commissioner and the 1st Canadian
diplomat to live in Nairobi.
1973-4 she was the 1st woman from External Affairs to
serve as Foreign Service Visitor at Dalhousie University, Halifax. In
1974 she received the Order of Canada. From 1984-1989 she was a trustee
for the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She was a true pioneer in
the Canadian Foreign Service and a valuable mentor for those who
followed in the profession.
Sources:
Margaret K. Weiers, Envoys Extraordinary: Women of the Canadian
Foreign Service. (Toronto; Dundurn, 1995); Blanche Margaret Meagher,
Canadian Encyclopedia online (Accessed July 2015) |
1960's |
Gladys Muriel
Porter.
Born August, 1894 Sydney, Nova Scotia. Died April 30, 1967 Kentville,
Nova
Scotia.
She became an active member of several social service organizations and
supporter of several charitable causes, taking on a leading role as
executive member of many of them at the community, county and provincial
level. Much of her work was with hospitals and health care
organizations. She was active in her United Baptist church and a
founding member and first president of the local chapter of the Business
and Professional Women's Club and served also as provincial president.
In 1946 she was inducted into the Order of the British Empire in honour
of her contribution to the civilian defense and war effort in both World
Wars. In 1943 she became a town councilor
in Kentville and in 1946 won the election for mayor, making her the 1st
woman in the Maritimes to do so. She was
re-elected mayor for a total of 11 years resigning only after winning a
seat in Kings North for the Progressive Conservative party in the
provincial legislature in the election of
June 7, 1960. She was the 1st woman to
be elected to the Nova Scotia Legislative Assembly. She served as a representative in the
legislature until her death in 1967.
|
Jean Casselman
Wadds.
Born
September 16, 1920 Newton Robinson, Ontario. Died November 25, 2011
Prescott, Ontario. She Married Azra Casselman who represented the
electoral district of Grenville-Dundas, Ontario from 1925-1958. Jean was
elected in 1958 and served in her husband’s riding in the House of
Commons for ten years. She was the third woman to be elected to the
Canadian Parliament. Her father was also a Member of Parliament, Earle
Rowe and the became the only father daughter ever to sit in the same
session of the Canadian Parliament. She was the first woman appointed to
serve as Parliamentary Secretary. In
1961 she was the 1st woman appointed by the Canadian Government as a
delegate to the United Nations.
In 1979 she was the first woman to be
appointed as Canadian High Commissioner to Great Britain.
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau would credit her as one of the
three key women along with Queen Elizabeth and British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher, responsible for the repatriation of the Canadian
Constitution. In 1982 she received the Order of Canada. She was a strong
supporter of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and the St Lawrence Shakespearian
Festival. Suggested Reading: Prescott 1810-2010.
Sources:
Obituary. Ottawa Citizen December 3, 2011.
Suggestion submitted by June Coxon, Ottawa. |
Marie-Claire
Kirkland-Casgrain.
née Kirkland. Born September 8, 1924, Palmer, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
After attending McGill University and, graduating in 1947, she studies
law. In 1952 she became a lawyer and practiced law in Montreal.
In the early 1960s she was an advisor to the Young Liberals in the
Jacques-Cartier riding, she was also President of the Mariana B. Jodoin
Club's Constitution Committee and the Fédération des femmes libérales du
Québec. She was also the founding member of the Association des femmes
advocates de la province de Québec. As if were not enough she was also
and contributing writer for Châtelaine magazine. She married P.
Casgrain and the couple had 3 children before they divorced. She was
1st elected to the Quebec Legislature as member for the Jacques-Cartier
riding during the December 14, 1961 by-election, and later for the
Marguerite-Bourgeois riding.
On December 5, 1962 she became the 1st woman appointed to the
Quebec provincial cabinet when she was appointed the Quebec Cabinet as
minister without portfolio.
On November 25, 1964 she was appointed Minister of Transportation
and Communications. From May 12, 1970 to February 15, 1972 she served as
Minister of Tourism, Game and Fishing and as Minister of Cultural
Affairs from February 2, 1972 to February 14, 1973. She was the only
female member of the Quebec provincial government from 1961-1973 and
She was also the 1st woman ever appointed as interim Premier of a
provincial government during the absence of its representative in 1972.
She played an outstanding role in the defense of women's issues and the
adoption of several laws: in 1964, the renowned Bill 16 on the legal
status of married women; in 1969, the bill governing matrimonial regimes
and establishing sociétées d'acquêts, and in 1973, the bill
establishing the Conseil du statut de la femme. In February 14, 1973 she
was appointed as a provincial court judge and president of the Minimum
Wage Commission. On June 26, 1985 she became a Chevalier de l’ordre
national du Québec. She withdrew from politics and worked as a judge in
Montreal until she retired in 1991. In 1992 she was inducted into the
Order of Canada. Her work for the advancement of women’s issues was
recognized in 1993 when she was presented with the Governor’s General
Commemorative Award for the Persons Case. She is also a Grande
Dame de l’ordre de Saint-Jean-de-Jérusalem.
In 2012, a statue was erected near
the Quebec
National Assembly
to honour Marie Claire Kirkland-Casgrain as well as
Idola Saint-Jean
(1945- ),
Marie
Gérin-Lajoie (1867-1945), and
Thérèse Casgrain
(1896-1981). These women were all political pioneers who fought for
women’s rights and for improvements in
women’s social and economic conditions to celebrate the 50th
anniversary of Kirkland being made the first female Cabinet minister in
Quebec. |
Dorothy
Annabelle Straton McPhedran.
Born Underwood, Ontario June 14, 1921. Died January 2012. In 1942 she
graduated with and honours B.A. in history from Victoria College,
University of Toronto. She married and had a son but divorced in 1952
after suffering abuse. Overcoming stigma of divorce Dorothy taught in
Kincardin before becoming head of the History Department of Northern and
St. Clair Colleges..
In 1964 she was promoted as the 1st woman
to be Inspector of schools for the Ontario Ministry of Education.
In 1974 she married Bruce ”Alex” McPhedran and she completed course work
for her PhD in Education at the University of Ottawa. In 1975 she became
the first woman appointed special Assistant and Women’s Advisor for the
Deputy Minister of Education. She had a love of travel and traveled to
numerous countries around the world. Including going behind the Iron
Curtain to Russia. She was a long time volunteer with Meals on Wheels,
delivering meals to those who needed them well into her 80’s.
Source: Obituary Globe and Mail January 2, 2012.
Suggestion submitted by
June Coxon, Ottawa Ontario. |
Judy
Verlyn LaMarsh.
Born
December 20, 1924 Chatham, Ontario. Died October 27, 1980. Like many
women of her generation Judy attended Normal School to train as a
teacher. Instead of teaching she joined the Canadian Women’s Army Corps
and
served from 1943-1946. After her military service Judy attended the
University of Toronto for her B.A. and then attended Osgoode Hall and
was called to the bar as a lawyer in 1950. As a politician she was
elected to the House of Commons in Ottawa in a by-election in the fall
of 1960. In 1963 she became the second woman to be appointed to a
Cabinet position in the Canadian government. This colourful, flamboyant
woman, as Minister of Health and Welfare, introduced the Canada Pension
Plan and supervised the drafting of what became Canada’s Medicare
system.
She became the 1st official in the western world government
to oppose tobacco smoking publicly.
As Secretary of State for Canada she presided over the 1967 Centennial
Year celebrations for Canada with great flair. She also
established the Royal Commission on the Status of Women. She left
politics after Canada’s Centennial Year using her time in retirement to
author 3 books including her autobiography, Memoirs of a Bird in a
Gilded Cage
in 1969. She became a broadcaster and hosted own weekday radio program
on CBC Radio. She returned to work as a lawyer and in 1974 defended the
Brunswick Four in a prominent LGBT Case. In April 1975 she headed the
Ontario Royal Commission on Violence in the Communications Industry.
Ill with pancreatic cancer she was inducted into the Order of Canada
from her hospital bed on July 22, 1980. The Government of Canada
Building in Chatham, Ontario is known as the Judy LaMarsh Building.
Sources: Judy LaMarsh, Making Medicare: the history of health care in
Canada 1914-2007,
www.historymuseum.ca (Accessed 2007); Canadian Encyclopedia
Online (Accessed 2004)
|
Louise-Marguerite-Renaude Lapointe.
Born Disraeli,
Quebec January 3, 1912. Her early studies in Music and foreign
languages were useful to the journalist who first newspaper post saw her
responsible for music criticism and women’s issues.
She would be the 1st
Canadian woman to become an editorial writer in 1965
which was marked with her being named “journalist of the
year” In November 1971 she was appointed to the Senate of Canada where
she would be
the 1st French
Canadian Woman to hold the position of Speaker of the Senate.
|
Jean Edmonds.
Born 1921. After her studies at the
University of Manitoba,
Jean would spend the first twenty years of her career as a journalist
for the Financial Post newspaper. In 1964 she joined the federal
government public service.
In 1966 she became the
1st woman executive in the federal government as an executive director
with the Department of Manpower and Immigration.
She would go on to the level of assistant Deputy Minister
with the Department of Regional Economic Development. In 1988 she became
chairperson of the Task Force on Barriers to Women in the Public Service
and would publish the ground breaking report called Beneath the Veneer.
The current Citizenship and Immigration Canada is headquartered in the
Jean
Edmonds
Towers.
|
Barbara Mary
Robertson.
Born May 23, 1929, Sussex, New Brunswick. Brenda was a home economist
and businesswoman with an interest in politics.
In 1967, Brenda became the1rst woman elected to
the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick.
She was re-elected in 1970, 1974, 1978 and 1982. In 1970,
this home economist from Riverview became the 1st woman appointed to the
New Brunswick Cabinet. She served 1st as Minister of Youth, and later as
Minister of Social Welfare, Minister of Social Services, Minister of
Health, and Minister of Social Program Reform. She remained a
Progressive Conservative MLA until her appointment to the Canadian
Senate on December 21, 1984.She retired on May 23, 2004 with almost 20
years of federal service. That same year she was made a Member of
the Order of New Brunswick. In 2008 she was induced into the Order of
Canada.
Source: New Brunswick Advisory Council on
the Status of Women, Celebrating Achievers; Behind Every Successful
Woman Are All the Women Who Came Before Her., September 2002. Online
(accessed January 2016)
|
1970's |
Ella Jean
Canfield.
née Garnet. Born October 4, 1918 Westmorland, Prince Edward Island. Died
December 31, 2000, Prince Edward Island. She attended school High School
in in Cambridge, Massacheutts while her family lived there. She later
attended Union Commercial College in Charlottetown, P.E.I. and the
Lincoln School of Nursing in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. On June 30
1939 she married Parker Ellsworth Canfield. The couple had one daughter.
She was chair of the management committee of the Crapaud Exhibition, a
member of the Home and School Association, and secretary-treasurer of
the Englewood School Board. Canfield was an organizer of the Community
Schools, served as president and treasurer of the Crapaud Women's
Institute, and was a secretary of the St. John's Anglican Church Women's
Organization.
Jean was an active member of the PEI Zonta Club, The Canadian Club, and
the Chamber of Commerce of Crapaud and Victoria.
She ran in 1966 for provincial election but was not successful. She was
1st elected to the Prince Edward Island Legislative Assembly in the
May 11, 1970
provincial election as Assemblyman for First Queens becoming the 1st
female member of the PEI Legislative Assembly
and the 1st woman to serve on Executive Council.
In 1972 she served as Chairwoman of the Provincial Advisory Committee
on the Status of Women in the Province of Prince Edward Island, 1972 to
1973. She was appointed as Minister without Portfolio and Minister
Responsible for P.E.I. Housing Authority from October 10, 1972 to May 2,
1974. In 1977 she was a recipient of the Queen’s Jubilee Medal. She
served in the legislature until 1979. Source: Ella Jean Canfield, Prince Edward Island Legislative Documents
Online. Accessed March 2016. |
Mabel Margaret
Van Camp.
Born 1920 Blackstock, Ontario. Died April 19, 2012 Toronto, Ontario. She
finished high school at 16 and was the first person from Blackstock to
attend university. After graduating from the University of Toronto she
studied at Osgoode Law school and was called to the bar in 1947.
Women were not well accepted in the profession and it took her awhile to
find a firm that would hire her. Soon she was leading the firm when the
boss was off sick. The firm became Beaudoin, Pepper and Van Camp. In
1965 she was appointed to the Queen’s Bench.
In 1971 she was
appointed as the 1st woman to the Ontario Supreme Court by Prime
Minister Pierre Trudeau. A proper title was finally accepted
when she became Madam Justice. She was also the 1st
woman member of the Royal Canadian Military Institute. A true pioneer
and mentor for women in the profession. Her charities included the
IODE, the YWCA for which she was President in Toronto in the 1960’s. In
2003 she was awarded the Order of Ontario.
Source; ”I am the
damn judge” by William Illsey Atkinson. The Globe and Mail.
August 9, 2012.
Suggestion submitted by June Coxon, Ottawa. |
Monique Bégin.
Born March 1,1936 Rome, Italy. She was born in Europe
while her French-Canadian
father
was working overseas. The family escaped to Portugal and back to Canada
at the breakout of World War 11. Monique earned a teacher's certificate
and then went on to study sociology at the Université de Montreal before
living in Paris, France for two years. She began working as executive
secretary to the Royal Commission on the Status of Women once back in
Canada. She was
1st
woman from Québec to be elected to the House of Commons in Ottawa in
1972. She distinguished herself as the
executive secretary-general of the Royal Commission on the Status of
Women. During her political Career she would serve as Minister of
National Revenue, then as Minister of National Health and Welfare. She
was responsible for increases in old-age supplements for needy senior
citizens and the child tax credit and a new health law which
strengthened the health insurance system. Leaving politics in 1984
Monique taught at the University of Ottawa. In 2004 she participated in
a play celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Women's Press
Club. In 2017 she earned the Maclean's Magazine lifetime award at the
Parliamentarian of the Year Awards.
|
Rosemary Brown.
née Wedderburn.
Born 1930, Kingston, Jamaica. Died April 26, 2003 Vancouver, British
Columbia. . She believed in justice for all and worked tirelessly to
ease violence and poverty in Canada and internationally.
On August 30,1972 she became the 1st Canadian
Black women to be elected to public office when she was elected to the
British Columbia Legislature. In
1975 she was the 1st woman to run for the head of a Canadian political
party when she entered the race in the New Democratic
party. On the last ballot she was second to Ed Broadbent of the
New Democratic Party. She served as President of MATCH International, an
international organization that supports women in the third world. She
was a founding mother of the Canadian Women’s Foundation. Among her many
awards are 15 honorary degrees from universities! After retiring
from Politics in 1988 she became a professor of women's studies at Simon
Fraser University in British Columbia. In 1989 she wrote her
autobiography:
Being Brown: a Very Public Life. In 1993 she was appointed Chief
Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. In 1995 she was
inducted into the Order of British Columbia. Dr Brown became an
officer in the Order of Canada in 1996. She also served on the Order of
Canada Advisory Committee from 1999-2003. June 17, 2005 a park in her
former provincial riding of Vancouver-Burrard was dedicated and
named in her honour. February 2, 2009 Canada Post issued a commemorative
stamp honouring Rosemary. There is a biography for youth to read by
Lynette Roy, Brown girl in the ring: Rosemary Brown [Toronto:
Sister Vision, 1992] |
Eileen
Elizabeth Dailly.
née
Gilmore. Born February 15, 1926, Vancouver, British Columbia. At the age
of 18 her political choices became evident when she joined the
Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (C.C.F) association. After high
school she attended Normal School (Teacher’s College) in Vancouver and
taught at elementary school. In 1951 she married James Dailly. In 1955
she gave up her classroom to stay at home with her son. The following
year she was elected as a trustee of the Burnaby School Board. In 1969
she was elected to the Provincial Parliament as a C.C.F. Member from
Burnaby North. Re-elected again in
1972
she found herself appointed as Minister of Education and she also became
the 1st woman to be named as
British
Columbia’s Deputy Premier.
As Minister of Education she is perhaps best remembered for her
February 14, 1973 amendment to the School Act which abolished corporal
punishment in BC public Schools. It was an event unprecedented in Canada
and very controversial. However it has never been re-instated. She also
introduced improved access to education for aboriginal children,
introduced mandatory kindergarten across the province and eliminated
grade twelve graduation examinations. The end of high school exams would
be reinstated ten years later by the in power Social Credit government.
She continued to represent North Burnaby after the C.C.F. party was no
longer in power retiring in 1986. From 1988-1991 she provided a seniors
program on Cable TV.
Source:
Yvette Drews, Eileen Dailly
https://www2.vlu.ca/homeroom/content/topics/people/dailly
(Accessed July 2015) |
Constance Glube.
née
Lepofky Born Ottawa, Ontario November 23, 1931. Died February 15, 2016
Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 1952 she earned her BA at McGill University,
Montreal and married Richard Glube. The couple would have 4 children. By
1955 she had graduated in law at Dalhousie University and entered the
Bar of Nova Scotia. In 1974
she became the Manager of the City of Halifax, the 1st woman in
Canada to hold such a position.
In 1977 she received the Award of Merit from a grateful City of Halifax.
September 21, 1977. She was appointed on
March 8, 1982 21st
Chief Justice of Nova Scotia and 1st woman to hold the position.
In 1998 Chief Justice of the Court of Appeal of
Nova Scotia, once again being the 1st woman in Canada to be appointed to
such a position retiring in 2004. She is a judicial
leader and mentor who has the admiration and respect of her peers. She
has been active in judicial education and court administration. She has
graciously served on various and numerous professional and volunteer
boards and committees at local, provincial and national levels.
Accolades for her services have included: The Canada 125 Medal, 1992;
the Frances Fish Award, a women lawyers Achievement Award, 1997; The
Queen’s Golden Jubilee Award, 2002; the International Honours Society
Golden Key Award, 2003; numerous honorary doctorate degrees from
universities; Honourary member of the Canadian Bar Association, 2004;
the Order of Nova Scotia 2005 and the Order of Canada , 2006.
Suggested sources: Protocol Office, Order of Nova Scotia Recipients
Http://www.gov.ns.ca/frot/2005recipients.htm (Accessed August 2008; |
Pauline
Emily McGibbon.
née Mills. Born October 20, 1910 Sarnia, Ontario. Died December 14, 2001
Toronto, Ontario. Pauline graduated from the University of Toronto in
1933. In 1935 she married her high school sweetheart Donald Walker
McGibbon and the couple settled in Sarnia, Ontario. A long time
volunteer for various charities and groups she served as president of
the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire from 1963-1965.
Pauline was also the 1st woman
chancellor at the University of
Toronto
and at the same time
1st woman Governor of Upper
Canada College 1971-1974.
She was appointed Lieutenant
Governor of the Province
of Ontario from 1974-1980,
the 1st woman in the British Empire to obtain such
a position.
She was also
the 1st woman President of the Canadian
Conference of the Arts in 1972 and 1st woman Director of 4
major Canadian companies: George Weston, IBM, Imasco and Mercedes Benz.
Pauline was inducted into the Order of Canada
in 1967 and promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada in 1980.
Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia
Online (Accessed 1999). In 1988 she was inducted into the Order of
Ontario. On October 5, 2006 the Ontario Heritage Trust and Sarnia
Kiwanis Foundation unveiled a provincial plaque commemorating Pauline in
Sarnia, Ontario.
Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia Online (accessed 1999): The
Ontario Trust Foundation (accessed 2006); The Hon. Pauline M.
McGibbon , Collections Canada. National Library of Canada (accessed
2009)
|
Simma Holt.
née Milner. Born March 27, 1922, Vegreville, Alberta. Died January 23,
2015. As a youngster she was drawn to watching the happenings of a
murder trial in her home town. She declared later in life that this is
when the love of the big story and the call of writing for newspapers
came to her.
Simma attended the University of Manitoba, 1941-1944.
On May 20, 1949 she married Leon Hold (d1985) a mathematics instructor.
She was a pioneer in journalism, entering the newsroom that was
traditionally
the
strong hold for males only. She would eventually gain women colleagues
to fend off the mean spiritedness and jibs of male reporters. Simma was
a member of the Canadian Womens Press Club (CWPC) where she served as
President of the Vancouver CWPC branch in 1953. She had a talent for
front page news. She started her career in Calgary but soon found
herself working as assistant city editor for the Vancouver Sun.
She was winner and runner-up ten times of the top award for news and
features by Canadian women writers.
She took up unjust causes and earned reprieve from the death penalty for
3 convicts.
In 1958, she went to South America to investigate the activities of
Freedomite leader Stefan Sorokin. After further years spent in
Freedomite research, she began work on her 1st book, Terror in the
Name of God, published in 1964. In 1967 she published her 2nd book,
Sex and the Teen Age Revolution. Her 3rd book, The Devil's
Butler in 1972, was almost like a follow-up to her 2nd book. It
focused on the drug explosion, the hippy scene and the Satan's Angels
motorcycle gang. In 1969, she received the University of Manitoba Alumni
Jubilee Award for distinguished achievement in the twenty-five years
since her graduation. She returned to the University of Manitoba
in the early 1970’s
became the 1st female managing editor of the student
newspaper, The Manitoban. On July 8,
1974 she was elected to the House of Commons, the 1st Jewish
woman elected to a seat in Ottawa
where she worked with fellow Liberal Party maverick, Pierre Trudeau
(1919-2000). Even here she faced anti-Semitism and anti-feminism. She
was unsuccessful in her bid to return to Ottawa in 1979 and gladly
returned to the Vancouver Sun. From 1981-1984 she served as a
member of the National Parole Board of Canada. She also wrote in 1982
The Other Mrs. Diefenbaker, which was the life story of the 1st
wife of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker (1895-1979). In 1996 she was
inducted into the Canadian News Hall of Fame and the Order of Canada.
She also penned her auto biography: Memoires of a loose Cannon in
2008. Sources: Bob Mickleburgh, No one messed with Simma Holt,
Globe and Mail, February 20, 2015; Brian Morton, Trail-blazing
reporter was afraid of no one. Ottawa Citizen February 7, 201;
information supplied also by . by
June Coxon, Ottawa, Ontario
|
Virnetta Anderson.
née Nelson. Born October 29, 1920, Monticello, Arkansas (pronounced Arkinsaw),
U.S.A. Died February 11, 2006 Calgary, Alberta. After high school Virnetta
attended M and N College, Pine Bluff, Arkansas and Metropolitan School of
Business, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. In 1952 Virnetta relocated to
Calgary, Alberta. It was here that she met and and married one of the city's
football stars, Ezzrett 'Sugarfoot' Anderson. The couple had four children.
Virnetta was deeply involved in her church and city wide community services.
She was on the executive of the Alberta United Church women and a lay
commissioner of the United Church of Canada Council. She served as president
of the Calgary Meals on Wheels and served on a multitude of boards such as
the City Core Citizen Centre, Trinity Lodge, the Calgary Metropolitan
Foundation, the Calgary Tourist and Convention Association, the Calgary
Centre for the Performing arts and as well she served on school boards and
on the Calgary Public Library Board. From
1974-1977 she was elected to the Calgary City Council serving as the 1st
Black Albertan elected to a major public position. In 1988
she was named a Paul Harris Fellow by the Calgary Rotary Club and in 1995
they presented her an Integrity Award. She set the standard high as an
example for Black youth in the province of Alberta. |
Sylvia Ostry. née Knelman. Born June 3, 1927
Winnipeg, Manitoba. She started her university studies at McGill
University in Montreal, Quebec, earning a BA, MA and PhD. She has
studied and worked with many other universities in Canada, U.S.A. and
England. She has had a strong three decade career as a civil servant
holding administrative and political positions in various Canadian
government departments, including being Chief Statistician 1972-1975.
She would be
the 1st woman to hold the rank of Deputy Minister in
the government of Canada February 18, 1976. |
Lise Thibault..
Born Saint-Roch-de-l’Achigan, Quebec April 2, 1939. As a young mother.
Lise became involved in Local school committees. She would found Les
Femmes d’aujourd’hui and was a teacher in adult education. She remained
committed to community, cultural, political and social activities when
she was a TV host for social and family oriented programming. She sat on
various provincial government committees, was Director of the Quebec
Bureau for the Handicapped, and worked with the Canadian Red Cross.
In 1977 she
became the first woman ever to hold the office of Lieutenant Governor of
Quebec.
|
Mary Wong.
Born Hamilton, Ontario. In 1943 she and her husband opened a family
restaurant in Hamilton, Ontario. She soon became involved with her home
community as principal of the National Chinese School and as a Chinese
interpreter in the city courts. She served as a member of the Canadian
consultative council on Multiculturalism.
In 1977 Mary Wong was the 1st Canadian of Chinese descent to be
appointed as a Citizenship Court Judge. She retired from the "bench" (
as a judge) in 1985. She is
an appointee to the Hamilton [Ontario] Gallery of Distinction. |
Nellie J. Cournoyea. Born
March 4, 1940 Aklavik, Northwest Territories. Nellie grew up traveling
and hunting in the traditional manner of her people. She married a
Canadian Forces officer and the couple were posted in Halifax and Ottawa
prior to heading back to the Northwest Territories with their 2
children. Shortly after the couple divorced. In the 1960’s she
worked as an announcer for the CBC radio. In 1969 she co-founded with
Agnes Semmler a political association to help the people of Inuvialuit
which gave her an active role in the
1984
land claim. In 1979 she
was elected to the Legislature of the Northwest Territories and served
on various cabinet positions prior to becoming the
1st native woman to lead
a provincial territorial government in Canada.
She served as Premier of the Northwest Territories from
November 14, 1991 to November 2, 1995.
Nellie was awarded the Woman of the Year for NWT in 1982 and in 1986 she
received the Wallace Goose Award. She was recognized with the National
Aboriginal Achievement Award in 1994. In 2004 she received the Energy
Person of the Year from the Energy Council of Canada.
In 2008 the Governor General of Canada awarded Nellie Cournoyea the
Northern Medal in recognition for her significant contributions to the
evolution and reaffirmation of the Canadian North as part of our
national identity. She volunteers as Director
of the Ingamo Hall Friendship Center in Inuvik and is a founding member
of the Northern Games Society. She is also a volunteer in Inuvialuit
historical and cultural activities.
Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia Online Accessed 2006);
Nellie J. Cournoyea, Collections Canada. National Library of Canada,
(Accessed 2006).
|
Pamela Ann
McDougall.
Born May
9, 1925, Ottawa, Ontario. She earned a Bachelor of Science at Mount
Allison University, and did post graduate studies at the
University of Toronto for her Master’s in 1946. She began to work as a
clerk at the federal Department of External Affairs in the Consular
Division. By 1952 she had written the Foreign Service exam and became a
Foreign Service Officer working 1st at the United Nations in
New York City, U.S.A. and then she was off to Germany serving
there from 1953-57 before returning to Ottawa where she worked on
the International Supervisory Commission for Vietnam. Her job included
extensive traveling before being assigned in 1961-1963 to Delhi, India
as 1st
secretary and later counselor. Once again back in Ottawa she served as
Deputy Head of the Far Eastern Division before she was posted to Warsaw,
Poland where she was the second Canadian woman to become an Ambassador
in January 1968. In
1979 she was appointed as Deputy Minister
for Health and Welfare Canada, the 1st Foreign Service
Officer to be promoted to this level.
On August 27 1980 the Prime Minister named her Commissioner
of the Royal Commission on Conditions in the Foreign Service mandated to
inquire into changes in the conditions of foreign service and to report
on steps that the government might take to accommodate them in the
context of its approach to the legal, administrative and operational
frameworks of the foreign service. She retired from the Government of
Canada in 1981. In retirement she served as a member of the Board of
Governors at Carleton University, Ottawa and was a Trustee of the Royal
Ottawa Hospital for 5 years. In 1987 she married Lieutenant
Colonel Paul Mayer.
Source: Margaret Weiers, Envoys Extraordinary: Women of the Canadian
Foreign Service (Toronto: Dundurn, 1995) |
1980's |
Roberta
Jamieson.
Roberta Louise Jamieson Born 1953. Six Nations of the Grand River
Territory, Ontario. A Mohawk and member of the Bear Clan, as a youth she
loved to read because even then she knew that education was important.
At first, she wanted to be a medical doctor and even enrolled in medical
school at McGill University, Montreal. She quickly became intrigued with
politics and decided that to solve issued for her people she should
attend law school at the University of Western Ontario, London.
Graduating in
1976 she
was the first aboriginal woman to become a lawyer in Canada! She was
named to head the first Ontario Indian Commission and in
1982 she was the 1st
non-parliamentarian to join a House of Commons Committee, the Special
Task Force on Indian Self Government. December 1986 she began a 10 year
position as Ontario Ombudsman, the 1st woman and the first aboriginal
person to hold this post. Roberta was elected Chief of Six Nations of
the Grand River in November 2001, again the 1st woman to hold this post.
She also ran in 2003 for National Chief but was defeated by Phil
Fontaine. She has over the years also participated on several
boards and committees at various local, provincial and national levels.
She is the founding chair of the Imagine Native, an international media
arts festival showcasing work of world indigenous artists. Married with
one daughter she is also proud to be a grandmother. Life has brought her
many awards for her achievements to date, including multiple honorary
doctorate, a membership in the Order of Canada, 1994 and the National
Aboriginal Award in 1998. Source:
Roberta Jamieson: Chief Six Nations of the Grand River Territory.
Contemporary Canadian Biographies. Thompson Gale, August 2003.
(Accessed online June 2008.) |
Elsie Eleanor
Wayne.
née
Fairweather. Born April 30, 1932, Shediac, New Brunswick. Died August
30, 2016, Saint John, New Brunswick. Elsie married Richard Wayne and the
couple had two sons. In 1977 she won election to the Saint John City
Council and in 1983 she became the 1st
woman mayor of Saint John.
In 1998 she was successful in running for a seat as a Progressive
Conservative member in the Canadian federal parliament. It was an
all-time low for the PC party as only Elsie and Jean Charet were elected
party members. In 1998 she was appointed PC Party interim Leader until
Prime Minister Joe Clark was elected that year. She served as deputy
leader under Clark. She was a “Straight Shooter’ when it came to
speaking her mind. She was flamboyant and had flare and a great sense of
humour even wearing reindeer antlers in the House of Commons. She stood
up for recognition of the war effort of the Merchant Marines and for
other veterans although she did not see why veterans should have free
viagra!. She retired from politics in 2004. Health problems flared when
she had a stroke in 2009.
|
Anne Cools.
Born August 12, 1943, Barbados. In 1957 she immigrated to Canada and
settled with her family in Montreal. In the 1960’s she attended McGill
University to earn her BA. In 1969 she was involved in a 10 day sit in
at George Williams University (Now Concordia University) and served a 4
month imprisonment as a result. In 1974 she relocated to Toronto where
she founded the 1st shelter for abused women. In the late
1970’s and early 1980’s she ran unsuccessfully as a Liberal candidate
for a seat in the House of Commons.
January 13, 1984 she was appointed by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to
the senate of Canada. She was the 1st Black woman in North
America to hold a Senate seat.
She was always strong minded and did not always agree on party lines and
was not afraid to speak her mind. In 2004 she “crossed the floor’ and
joined the Progressive Conservative party. ON June 25, 2007 she was
removed from the Progressive Conservative Caucus for speaking out
against Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the PC budget proposal. She
became an independent in the senate. |
Daurene Lewis.
Born 1943 Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia. Died January 26, 2013, Halifax,
Nova Scotia. Daurene was proud of her maritime black history roots which
reached back to USA revolutionary slaves escaping to Nova Scotia. Her
family strongly believed in education for their children. Daurene
studied Nursing at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. She
worked for a
short
time in Toronto before returning home to care for her ill mother. Her
mother was an accomplished weaver and Daurene learned from her making
weaving her avocation and opening her own artistic studio. In 1979 she
realized that in order to advocate needed change she must get involved
and she became the 1st Black woman to run for Annapolis Town
Council. In 1982 she was appointed town mayor.
And became the 1st Black woman in
Canada to become a mayor in 1984.
She did not want her ethnicity to be her legacy and worked hard to
move the town ahead. After her term as mayor in
1988 she became the 1st
Black woman in Nova Scotia to run in a provincial election.
She was not successful in her bid for the provincial assembly and
left politics. She worked in education of the arts and became principal
of the two Nova Scotia Community College campuses. Helping to open a new
campus in Dartmouth. She earned a masters degree in Business
Administration at St. Mary’s University in Halifax and served as
executive director of Mount St Vincent University Centre for Women in
Business. In 2002 she was recognized for her works with the Order of
Canada. She would serve on the Premier’s Council on the Economy, chair
the Africville Heritage Trust where she was instrumental in building a
replica of Halifax’s Africville Church.
Source:
“She was Canada’s 1st Black female Mayor”. by Allison Lawlor, The
Globe and Mail, February 12, 2013
Suggestion submitted by June Coxon, Ottawa, Ontario
|
Janis Gurdrun Johnson.
Born
April 27, 1946 Winnipeg, Manitoba. In 1968 Janis graduated from the
University of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Arts in Political science. She
received the Velia Stern Outstanding Student Award when she graduated.
After university she worked in the office of the Hon. Roberts Stanfield
and was a political organizer in Ontario, western Canada and
Newfoundland & Labrador for the Progressive Conservative Party of
Canada. In 1973 she married Frank Moores the Premier of Newfoundland and
Labrador. The couple had 1 son. In 1977 her volunteer efforts were
recognized with the Queen's Jubilee Medal. By 1979 she was back in
Manitoba where she was a businesswoman as head of Janis Johnson and
Associates a public policy and communications group in Winnipeg. Om 1981
she was a founding member of the Manitoba Special Olympics and went on
to serve as Director of Special Olympics Canada.
From 1986-1991
she was the 1st
woman to be appointed to the CN Board of Directors and helped establish
the 1st onsite child care facility within a Canadian Crown
Corporation. She also served in 1984 as the 1st woman as
National Director of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.
She also served and the advisory Board of the Royal Winnipeg
Ballet, the Prairie Theatre Exchange of Winnipeg and the Winnipeg Art
Gallery. On September 27, 1990 she was appointed to the Senate of
Canada. In 1993 she received the Canada 125 Medal and in 1995 she
received the Business and Professional Women’s Award. In 1994 the
Special Olympics presented her with its Volunteer Award. In 2000
she was a founding member and chair
of the Gimli Film Festival and the country of Iceland presented her with
the Order of the Falcon for working promoting Canadian-Icelandic
relations. In 2003 she received the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal
and in 2009 she was the Outstanding Alumni of the University of
Manitoba. In 2012 she was recipient of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee
Award. |
Jeanne Mathilde Sauvé.
(née Benoit) Born April 26, 1922, Howell, Saskatchewan. Died January 26,
1993, Montreal, Quebec. The Benoit family moved to Ottawa when Jeanne
was just a toddler. She attended the University of Ottawa earning her
tuition by working as a government translator. While working in Montreal
Jeanne met Maurice Sauvé. The two were married on September 24, 1948.
The couple would have one son. The young newly weds headed first to
London England and then to Paris where Jeanne worked at the Youth
Secretariat of UNESCO. In 1951 she attended university at the Sorbonne
earning a degree in French Civilization. In 1952, while living in St
Hyacinthe, Quebec Jeanne helped found the Institute of Political
Research and began working as a broadcast journalist for the CBC. She
earned a position in the male bastion of political journalism and from
1956-1963 she hosted her own television show, Opinions. In
1972
she ran for a seat in the House of Commons and became
the 1st Quebec woman in a
federal cabinet with the
position of Minister of State for Science and Technology. She would
later serve in cabinet positions in the environment and Communications.
On April 14, 1980 she was appointed as 1st
woman to be Speaker to the House of Commons.
When television camera first came to record proceedings of the house,
Sauvé was asked to put some blue colouring in her dazzling white hair
which was too bright for television filming. Her time as Speaker was
known for its cuts in expenses and for starting the 1st
daycare for Parliament Hill. On
May
14, 1984 Jeanne Sauvé was sworn in as the 23rd Governor
General of Canada since confederation. She was the 1st woman
to receive this position. She served in this position until 1993
fostering youth peace programs, creating the Governor General’s Award
for Safety in the workplace and supporting nationalism. Upon retirement
she established the Sauvé Foundation where she worked until her death.
The Jeanne Sauvé Trophy is presented in World Cup Women’s Field Hockey.
In 1994 Canada Post issued a postage stamp in her honour. |
Flora Isabel MacDonald.
Born June 3, 1926, Sydney, Nova
Scotia. Died July 26, 2015, Ottawa, Ontario. After having worked
several years behind the scenes of the Progressive Conservative Party
she was elected Member of Parliament for Kingston and the islands
in 1972. In 1977 the National Film Board of Canada produced a
documentary showing her bid for the progressive Conservative run for
leadership of the party in 1976. On June 4, 1979 she was sworn in as a
member of the Queen's Privy Council of Canada.
In
the Joe Clark Government 1979-1980 she became the 1st woman to hold a
major cabinet post as Secretary of State for External Affairs.
The
Iran hostage crisis was a major
issue during MacDonald's term. Six American diplomats had escaped the
seizure of the American embassy by radical Iranian students and had
sought refuge in the Canadian embassy in
Tehran. MacDonald authorized the
issuance of false passports and money to the six as part of a plan to
rescue the escapees that had the Americans pose as Canadians and leave
the country with Canadian staff when the embassy was closed on January
28, 1980, although she was not able to discuss her role publicly.[3][9]
The successful operation became known as the
Canadian Caper, and it was later
dramatized in the
Academy Award-winning film
Argo.
She would later serve in the Mulroney Cabinet as Minister of Employment
and Immigration. In 1992 she was inducted as an Officer into the
Order of Canada and in 1998 she was promoted to Companion of the
Order. In 1995 she received the Order of Ontario. In 2000 she received
the Pearson Medal of Peace. 2002 saw her awarded the Queen Elizabeth
Golden Jubilee Medal. In 2004 she was awarded the Padma Shri
civilian award from the Government of India. In 2007 she was made
a member of the Order of Nova Scotia. After retiring from the political
forum she worked to help the people of Afghanistan to help themselves by
providing simple training in the sues of solar energy that the people
provided for themselves. In October 2010 she received the Canada World
Peace Award from the World Federalist Movement-Canada. In 2012 she
received the Queen Elizabeth ll Diamond Jubilee Medal. She received a
Lifetime Achievement Award from Maclean's Magazine. The prominent
400 boat harbour in front of the Kingston Ontario City Hall is
named in her honour. During her career she received 19 honourary degrees
from various universities in Canada and the United States |
Alexa McDonough.
Born Ottawa, Ontario August 11, 1944. Alexa studied at
Dalhousie
University
and the Maritime School of Social work.
In 1980 she became the 1st woman to lead a
recognized political part in
Canada.
As a social worker she had chosen politics as her avenue to improve her
community by leading the Nova Scotia New Democratic Party (NDP) . In
1995 she was elected as leader of the national NDP. She stepped down
from her leadership position in January 2003 but retained her seat in
the House of Commons to continue to serve her constituents. |
Pearl
McGonigal.
Born June 10, 1929 Melville, Saskatchewan. After school she worked in
the banking sector. She was elected to the city council of St. James-Assiniboia
in 1969 just two years prior to amalgamation with the City of Winnipeg.
She would serve on the Grater City of Winnipeg city council from 1971
through 1981, and held the position as Deputy Mayor from 1979 to 1981.
She became the 19th
Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba on October 23, 1981, the 1st
woman to hold this position.
She was inducted into the Order of Canada in 1984 and the
Order of Canada in 2000. She loves to cook and has written a regular
column on cooking in Winnipeg’s daily and community newspapers. During
the 2000’s she served as Chairperson of the Canadian Forces Liaison
Council in Manitoba, which lobbies public bodies and private businesses
to grant time off to military reservists for training. |
Marion Loretta
Reid.
Born January
2, 1929, North Rustico, Prince Edward Island. She attended Prince of
Wales College in P.E.I. and earned a 1st class teacher’s
license when she was only 17. On Jun 29, 1949 she married Lee P. Reid
and the couple had 8 children. She taught for 21 years while bringing up
her family. In 1979 she was elected to the P.E.I. legislature and was
appointed Deputy Speaker. Winning re- election in
1982 she became the 1st woman speaker of the P E I Provincial
Legislature. From
1990 through 1995 she served
as
the 24th
Lieutenant Governor of the province of Prince Edward Island the 1st
woman to hold this position. She was active in her
community service as well as in politics. She served on various boards
including the Board of Governors of the PEI Teacher’s Federation and the
Board for the Status of Women. She was an active member or the
Sterling Women’s Institute, The Catholic Women’s League and a charter
member of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Foundation as well as the Zonta
Club. In 1994 the Prince Edward Island Girl Guides of Canada created an
award in her honour. In 1996 she was inducted into the Order
of Prince Edward Island and was inducted as a Member of the Order of
Canada. (2019) |
Bertha Wilson.
née Wernham. Born September 18, 1923 Kirkcaldy, Scotland.
Died April 28, 2007, Ottawa, Ontario. She graduated with a Master of
Arts from the University of Aberdeen in 1944. In 1945 she married John
Wilson, a Presbyterian minister, who served as minister to the United
Church in Renfrew, Ontario. When John became a naval chaplain during the
Korean War she was working as a dental receptionist in Ottawa. In she
settled with John who had been posted to Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 1954
she entered Dalhousie Law School, Halifax and was called to the nova
Scotia Bar in 1957. Relocating to Toronto, she was called to the Bar in
Ontario in 1959 and specialized in legal research and opinion writing
for other lawyers. She was the 1st woman appointed to
the Ontario Court of Appeal in 1975 where she became known for her
“imaginative and humane decisions”.
In 1982 she was the 1st
woman appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. In 1988
she was appointed a commissioner on the Reasmus-Dussault Royal
Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. In 1991 she was elected a fellow of
the Royal Society of Canada and in 1992 she was named to the Order of
Canada.
Sources: Bertha Wilson biography, Supreme Court of Canada
Accessed 2008; Obituary, the Globe and Mail April 30, 2007.
Accessed 2008 |
Iona Campagnolo.
née Hardy.
Born October 18, 1932 Galiano Island, British
Columbia. She began her working career as a
broadcaster in her native British Columbia in 1965. She became very
involved in her community, being head of the local school board, and
alderman. In 1973 she was made a Member of the Order of Canada and
promoted to the level of Officer in 2008. She was elected as a
Member of Parliament for Skeena from 1974 to 1979. In 1976 she came to
the national spotlight when she became Minister of Fitness and Amateur
Sport. In 1977 she was the recipient of the Queen Elizabeth ll Silver
Jubilee Medal. She returned to politics as the
1st woman President of the Liberal Party of
Canada from 1982 to 1986. In 1992 she received the 125th
Anniversary of Confederation of Canada Medal. As a private citizen she
retained her interest in politics and can be seen and heard making
political comment on major current topics. In 1992 she was elected as
the founding Chancellor of the University of Northern British Columbia.
In 1998 she was inducted into the Order of British Columbia retiring in
1998.
In 2001 she became the 1st woman to be
appointed as Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia. In
2002 she received the Queen Elizabeth Golden Jubilee Medal In 2003 the
Chief Herald of Canada granted her armorial bearings. In 2012 she
received the Queen Elizabeth ll Diamond Jubilee Medal. (updated July
2017)
|
Shirley
Theresa Dysart.
née
Britt. Born February 22, 1928 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Died
December 14, 2016 St John, New Brunswick. Shirley’s parents were vising
a cousin when she was born and the little family soon returned to Saint
John, New Brunswick. After graduating from high school she
attended the New Brunswick Teachers’ College and the University of New
Brunswick. As a Beaverbrook Scholar she was able to study at the
University of London in England. She taught at her local high school and
in 1967 she became a member of the local school board. She married
H. Eric Dysart and the couple had one son. In 1974 she became the woman
of the Liberal party to win a seat in the Legislative Assembly of New
Brunswick, a seat she held for 20 years, winning five consecutive
elections. In 1976 she served on the Bi-Centennial Celebration Committee
for the Province of New Brunswick.
In 1985 she became the 1st
woman to serve as interim Leader of the Opposition in the provincial
legislature. In 1987 she was appointed Minister of Education,
the 1st woman to hold the position. She introduced a
province-wide Universal, full-day public kindergarten program. She also
let community projects in St John including rebuilding of the Imperial
Theatre. She was president of the Catholic Women’s League Council,
President of the University of New Brunswick Alumni Council and was a
active member of the Saint John Family Services and the Irish-Canadian
Cultural Association.
In 1991, Dysart was elected Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, the
first woman to hold the position. She received the 1992
Commemorative Medal for the 125th Anniversary of
Confederation. She retired from politics in 1995. In 2000 she received a
Red Cross Humanitarian Award. 2015 saw her named a Champion of Public
Education by the national educational charity, The Learning Partnership.
In 20014 she became a Member of the Order of Canada. In 2012 she
received the Queen Elizabeth ll Diamond Jubilee Medal. |
Sheila
Maureen Copps.
Born
November 27, 1952 Hamilton, Ontario. Sheila followed her father Victor
Copps, a longtime Mayor of Hamilton, by choosing the profession of
politics. Graduating from the University of Western Ontario in London
with a degree in French and English she has been a consistent supporter
of bilingualism in Canada. She studied for advanced degrees at McMaster
University in Hamilton, Ontario and the University of Rouen in France.
Her 1st jobs were as a newspaper journalist in Hamilton and
Ottawa. In 1981 she was elected to the Ontario Provincial legislature
and in 1984 she successfully ran as a member of Parliament (Liberal) for
the federal Government. She penned her autobiography entitled
Nobody’s Baby in 1986. She was the 1st
sitting member of Canadian Parliament to give birth in 1987
and made headlines by bringing her baby to
work with her. On November 4, 1993
she became the 1st woman Deputy Prime
Minister.
In 1996 she changed cabinet positions to Canadian Heritage. She had
promised during the election to resign if the Liberals failed to
eliminate the controversial Goods and Service Tax (GST) and kept her
word resigning in May 1996 when Prime Minister Paul Martin said the tax
would remain. She was re-elected on June 17, 1997 and was once again
Minister of Canadian Heritage and Deputy Prime Minister. She was
defeated in the March 6, 2004 election and on May14, 2004 she retired
from elected politics in conflict with leader Paul Martin. After leaving
politics her public appearances were on stage in Kingston Ontario in a
dinner theatre production of the play, Steel Magnolias. In
October 2004 she published her second autobiography Worth Fighting For
which caused more controversy with Liberal Leader Paul Martin. She
returned to her 1st career writing columns for the
National Post and the Toronto Sun which she ceased in
December 2007. Sheila also became a broadcaster with a radio talk
show and later on a series for History Television. On March 23 2006 a
gala tribute to her was held by the Liberals to help heal the
controversial wounds. After losing her run for the president of the
Liberal Party of Canada in 2012 Sheila announced her full retirement
from politics. She was appointed to the Order of Canada on December 30,
2012.
Sources:
The Canadian Encyclopedia Online (accessed 2005); Order of
Canada. (Accessed 2013) |
Muriel McQueen
Fergusson.
Born Shediac, New Brunswick
May 26,1899. Died April
11, 1997. After her Husbands death she took over his law practice.
She worked to have women recognized as possible appointees to government
positions. She was one of the early women senators and is credited with
pushing the government o revise the Criminal Code so women could sit on
juries in criminal cases. Women could now plead rape charges with women
on the jury! She was the 1st woman to
be appointed as Speaker in the Senate.
Her home province is home to a Family Violence Research
Centre named in her honour. |
Ethel Dorothy Blondwin-Andrews. Born
March 25, 1951, Tulita, Northwest Territories. Ethel attended various
schools including residential school and Grandin College Leadership
Program at Fort Smith. She followed this with a teacher certificate from
Arctic College prior to earning her Bachelor of Education from the
University of Alberta in 1974. She was one of the 1st accredited
Aboriginal teachers in the North, teaching in Tuktoyaktuk, Délįnę, Fort
Providence, and Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. From 1984-1986, she
served as a Senior Public Servant with the Public Service Commission in
Ottawa and before returning to the north to join the Government of the
Northwest Territories as Assistant Deputy Minister for Culture from 1986
to 1988 where she served on the Arctic Institute of North America for
two terms as well as the Assembly of First Nations Language Committee
and worked on the Special Committee on Education for the Government of
the Northwest Territories.
In 1988, Ethel was
elected as a Liberal from the District of the Western Arctic to the
Canadian Parliament, the 1st aboriginal woman elected to the
House of Commons. She went on to win the next four federal
elections in 1993, 1997, 2000, and 2004. Under Prime Ministers Jean
Chretien and Paul Martin she would be appointed to the Cabinet as
Secretary of State, then Minister of State for Children and Youth. She
returned to the North to work as Chairperson for Sahtu Secretariat
Incorporated the organization created by the Sahtu region’s seven land
corporations to ensure the Sahtu land claim (signed in 1994) is properly
implemented.
Sources:
Ethel Blondwin-Andrews. Canadian House of Commons. Online (Accessed
2004) ; Ethel Blondwin-Andrews, Biography. Sahtu Secretariat INC. Online
(Accessed July 2015)
|
Ingrid
Marianne Hall. Born
Montreal, Quebec. After completing her Master of Art studies at
McGill University in Montreal, she wrote the Foreign Service exam and
joined the federal Department of External Affairs in 1968. She was
posted to New York City and then to the Canadian Embassy in Washington,
D.C. U.S.A. In 1976 she was married and unlike many Foreign Service
women who married she remained at work. The couple knew that they might
find themselves separated with different postings and accepted this
fact. When she became pregnant with her 1st child she
also remained working even though this was not the norm. During her
maternity leave she made double contributions to her pension fund and
paid her own health insurance in order to make sure she would have a job
to return to at the end of her leave. Foreign Service women did not
return to their jobs after a birth but Ingrid chose to after the birth
of both her children. In 1979 she served in the Philippines and then
back to Ottawa where she worked towards obtaining her goal to be in
charge of a post. She had to convince not only the powers at be in
Ottawa but also the government of the place she would be posted. She
wanted to serve in Indonesia and she had to convince this Muslim,
military and male dominated country. From
1989
through 1992 she was Ambassador to Indonesia in Jakarta.
She was the 1st woman
from any country to become ambassador to Indonesia.
She set up an informal woman’s network for External Affairs and
reveled in the fact that younger woman in the foreign service were
having wider career opportunities.
She also headed the Canadian Foreign Service Institute and worked on the
domestic side of government in the Privy Council Office Machinery of
Government.
Ingrid took up her current assignment as Ambassador Extraordinary
and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Austria and Permanent
Representative of Canada to the United Nations Organizations in Vienna
in October 2001.
She is the
Chair of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy
Agency for 2004-2005 is the Ambassador and Permanent Representative from
Canada.
Sources:
Margaret K. Weiers, Envoys Extraordinary: Women of the Canadian
Foreign Service. (Toronto; Dundurn, 1995); |
Audrey McLaughlin.
née Brown. Born November 7, 1936 Dutton, Ontario. Audrey became the 1st
woman in her family to earn a BA graduating from the University of
Western Ontario. She earned her degree by correspondence from a mink
farm that she and her husband ran north of London. The Couple have 2
children. She taught at a private college in Ghana, West Africa from
1964 through 1967 returning home to attend graduate studies in Social
work at the University of Toronto. After graduating with her MA she
worked for the Metropolitan Toronto Children’s Aid Society. She divorced
in 1972 and remained in the work force and by 1975 she was the
executive director of the Canadian Mental Health Association. Moving to
Whitehorse in 1979 she worked as a business consultant and supervisor of
social services. She ran and won a by election in 1987 and became the 1st
New Democratic Party MP elected in the Yukon. She was the 1st
woman chair of the Parliamentary caucus of any federal party in Canada
in 1988. On
December 2, 1989
she was chosen leader of the NDP, becoming
the 1st woman in Canadian history to lead a federal political party.
The 1993 federal election saw a reduction of
support for the NDP and the following year she stepped down as party
leader but remained in parliament to represent the people of the Yukon
until 1997. In 1992 she published her autobiography, A woman’s Place.
In 1996 she was elected president of Socialist International Women,
an organization which promotes activities amongst various women's
socialist and labour party organizations. Her efforts toward social
justice saw her inducted into the Order of Canada in 2004.
Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia Online (Accessed 2005);
Audrey McLaughlin, Political Heros Online, (Accessed 2009) |
1990's |
Andrée Champagne. Born Saint-Hyacinthe,
Quebec July 17, 1939. An
accomplished pianist and actor on radio and television she also worked
hard for her profession and established the 1st Canadian retirement home
for artists, Le Chez Nous des Artistes.
She began a career in politics in 1984. Elected to the House of Commons in
Ottawa, she was immediately appointed to Cabinet in the position of
Minister of State for Youth. In 1990 she
became the 1st woman to be appointed as Deputy Speaker of the House of
Commons. She has now retired from active politics and
returned to private life. |
Zanana Loraine Akande.
Born 1937, Toronto,
Ontario. Zanana holds a B.A. and Master's in Education from the
University of Toronto. In the 1960’s at an early teaching position she
was asked by colleagues to eat her lunch in the basement, away from
regular staff. Although her complaint to the school board on racism was
heard and adjustments made she never had lunch on site at the school
again, preferring to eat off school grounds. She was co-founder of the
Tiger Lily, a newspaper for visible minorities. In
1990 she ran and was elected for
provincial parliament in the riding of St. Andrew/St. Patrick, Toronto.
She was appointed Minister of
Community and Social Services, the 1st Black woman to hold a cabinet
position in a provincial government in Canada. She
resigned amidst political controversy concerning property holdings in
1991. At this time she was also mourning the death of her husband Isaac
Akande who had died that year. She became assistant to Ontario Premier
Bob Rae and established the Jobs Ontario Youth Programme that ran from
1991 through 1994. A disillusioned politician she retired from politics,
even resigning from her New Democratic Party. After leaving politics she
designed and coordinated programs for students with special needs,
including gifted children and immigrant children. Many community based
endeavors also gained from her services including the Urban Alliance,
The United Way of Greater Toronto, the Elizabeth Fry Society, and the
Toronto Child Abuse Center. Among the many recognitions for her work is
the African Canadian Achievement Award for Education, and the Award of
Distinction from the Congress of Black Women.
Sources: Zanana Akande, first Black woman in Ontario
Legislature. Section15.ca accessed 2009.
Sway
online September 17, 2010 accessed June 2011. (2020) |
Hugette Labelle.
Born April 15, 1939 Rockland, Ontario. Hugette graduated from the
University of Ottawa with a Master of Education and a Doctor of
Philosophy in Education. .This nursing teacher was one of the few women
of her generation to achieve senior administrative status with the
federal government. She was appointed to nursing's highest
administrative position as Principal Nursing Officer at Health and
Welfare Canada in 1973. 1973 to 1980 she held various senior
management posts with the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs.
From 1985 for five years she was chairperson of the Public Service
Commission of Canada and in 1990
for three years she was the 1st francophone woman to be a Deputy
Minister.
In 1998 she received the Outstanding Achievement Award of the Public
Service of Canada. In 1999 she was awarded the Vanier Medal from the
Institute of Public Administration of Canada. She also served as
President of the Canadian International Development Agency. In 1984 she
became Chancellor at the University of Ottawa serving in that position
until 2012.
She would serve as the 1st woman President of
the Canadian Red Cross. Huguette
has served as President, Vice-President, chairperson or sat on the board
of numerous organizations including; the Ottawa General Hospital,
the Ottawa Health Sciences Centre Inc., the Transportation Association
of Canada, Algonquin College, Ottawa-Carleton United Way, the Management
Consulting Institute and the Canadian Nurses Association, the China
Council for the International Co-operation on
Environment and Development, the World Health Organization\'s Working
Group on Health and Development Policies, vice-president of the Canadian
Safety Council, World Health Organization\'s Expert Committee on Health
Manpower Management Systems, Board of Governors of the International
Development Research Centre, the Export Development Corporation, the
International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development,
Carleton University, McGill University, the International Aviation
Management Training Institute, the Canadian Comprehensive Auditing
Foundation, the Public Policy Forum, the Collegium of Work and Learning,
the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, Collaboration
International Health, as well as the Institute for Public Administration
of Canada. She was also a member of the organizing committee for the
Summit for youth employment. Environment and Development, the World
Health Organization\'s Working Group on Health and Development Policies,
vice-president of the Canadian Safety Council, World Health
Organization\'s Expert Committee on Health Manpower Management Systems,
Board of Governors of the International Development Research Centre, the
Export Development Corporation, the International Centre for Human
Rights and Democratic Development, Carleton University, McGill
University, the International Aviation Management Training Institute,
the Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation, the Public Policy Forum,
the Collegium of Work and Learning, the Canadian Centre for Occupational
Health and Safety, Collaboration International Health, as well as the
Institute for Public Administration of Canada. She was also a member of
the organizing committee for the Summit for youth employment. In
2001 Hugette became an officer of the Order de la Pleiade and a Member
of the Order of Canada. In 2007 she was one of 15 Trailblazers and
Trendsetters by the Woman's Exchange Network.
On January 19, 2016, she was appointed to Chair the Independent Advisory
Board for Senate Appointments, to advise the Prime Minister on Senate
appointments. (2019) |
Glenda Simms.
Born Jamaica, 1939. Glenda was a teacher in her home of Jamaica but was
encouraged by a Canadian teach working in Jamaica Glenda accepted a
teaching position in Northern Alberta at the Fort Chipewyan reserve in
1966. Her students had never seen a black person before and Glenda had
never seen aboriginal children. It did not take long for her to accept
the warm and openness of the community. In 1967 she was joined by her
husband in Canada and in 1968 her 3 children arrived. Glenda earned her
Master’s degree in 1976 at the University of Alberta, Edmonton in
Educational Psychology and her PhD in 1985 taught at various
universities.
From 1977
to 1980 she taught Native Education in the Faculty of Education at the
University of Lethbridge, Alberta; she was Head of the Native Education
Department at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College, University of
Regina, from 1980 to 1985 and she served as the Supervisor of
Inter-cultural Education, Race and Ethnic Relations for the Regina
Public School Board from 1985 to 1987, Head of the Native Education
program at the Nipissing University, North Bay, Ontario 1987-1989. Her
volunteer commitments have seen her in the role as President of the
Congress of Black Women in Canada, Vice-president of Match
International, being a member of the Native Curriculum Review Committee,
treasurer of the Institute of Public Administrators of Canada in Regina.
She is a founding member and Director of the National Organization of
Immigrant and Visible Minority Women of Canada and a member of the Board
of Directors of the Ontario Housing Corporation.
She became President of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of
women in January 1990, the 1st Black woman to be appointed to
this level of the Federal government in Canada.
In
1988 she was amongst the first group of Canadians to receive the
Citizenship Citation, awarded by the Secretary of State for outstanding
contribution to Canadian society. In 1988 she also received an Award of
Excellence from the Canadian Association of Principals and in 1989 an
Appreciation Award from the Organizers of the Junior Black Achievement
Awards. She has been the recipient of the 1990 National Award from the
Canadian Council for Multicultural and Intercultural Education. In 1991
she was one of the first two people inducted into the North Bay Human
Rights Hall of Fame, In 1992 she was awarded the Inter-Amicus Human
Rights Award by McGill University for her contribution to the rights of
Aboriginal peoples, women and racial minorities; and in 1993 the Ryerson
Fellowship Award by Ryerson Polytechnic University and the Distinguished
Alumna Award by the University of Alberta. Also in 1993 she was made an
Honorary Member of the Federation of Medical Women of
Canada. In 2009 she launched St. Elizabeth Women (SEW) Ltd. A social
action organization aimed at empowering women to deal with economic and
social stress in Jamaica. |
Rita Margaret Johnston.
née Leichert. Born April 22, 1935 Melville, Saskatchewan. Rita Married
George Johnston in 1951. She was 1st elected to the city council of
Surry, British Columbia in 1970. In 1983 she was elected to the British
Columbia provincial assembly becoming Minister of Municipal Affairs and
Transit in 1986. In 1990 Premier Bill Vander Zalm appointed her as
deputy premier.
In April 2, 1991 she became the 1st woman to serve as a provincial
premier in Canada when Bill Vander
Zalm resigned and she became interim leader of the Social Credit Party
in British Columbia. By July 1991 she was formally elected Leader of the
party. Her term in office was short lived when her part did not win the
provincial elections of October 17, 1991. She resigned as leader of the
provincial Social Credit Party on January 11, 1992. Leaving politics she
returned to public duties in 2009 when she became an advisor for the
British Columbia Conservative Party.
Sources:
The Encyclopedia of British Columbia. Online Accessed 2015) |
June Rowlands.
née Pendock.
Born May 14,1925 Saint-Laurent, Quebec. Died December 21, 2017 Toronto,
Ontario. Her family relocated to Toronto when she was young. June
graduated from the University of Toronto and worked with Bell Canada. June
married Harry Rowlands (1922-1989) whom she later divorced. They raised
five children. In the 1970's she served with the Association of Women
Electors and National Council on Welfare. In 1976 she was elected the
Toronto City Council. In 1978 she was again elected becoming a senior
alderman and she had the added duty of sitting on the Metro Council. She
tried running for the Liberal Party in the 1984 federal election but was not
successful. In 1988 she declined to run in the 1988 Toronto municipal
election accepting instead an appointment as the 1st women chair
of the Police Commission.
In 1991 she was elected as the 1st woman Mayor of Toronto
defeating Jack Layton (1950-2011) by a margin of two to one votes. She had
one term when she was defeated in the 1994 Toronto Municipal elections by
Barbara Hall (1946- ). In 2004 Davisville Park in Toronto was
renamed in her honour in recognition of her dedication to the city. An
Historic plaque was installed in the park: ‘June Rowland… Dedicated Leader
and Woman of Firsts’.
(2018) |
Avril 'Kim'
Phaedra Campbell.
Born Port Alberni, British Columbia, March 10, 1947.
Known as “Kim” since a teen, she attended the University of British
Columbia and went on to earn a PhD at the London School of Economics,
London England. Entering politics as a member of the Vancouver School
Board from 1980-4. She moved to the British Columbia Provincial
Legislature, 1986-88 and was elected to the Canadian House of Commons in
1988. In 1989 she was appointed Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern
Development. The 1st woman to serve as
Minister of Justice, February 1990, by January 1993, she also became the
1st woman Minister of Defense of a NATO country. In June
1993 she became the 1st woman elected leader of the Progressive
Conservative Party and the 1st woman Prime Minister of Canada.
She resigned after election defeat in, November 1993. Appointed Consul
General to Los Angeles, California from 1996-2000, she was also chair,
1999 – 2003, for the Council of Women World Leaders. Working with a
group of national leaders to strengthen democracy in the world, she was
founder and acting President of the Club de Madrid, and was appointed
Secretary General in 2004. A lecturer of public policy at Harvard, she
currently describes herself as a teacher and recovering politician.
Sources: Canadian Encyclopedia Online (accessed 2004);
Canadian Who's Who. |
Helen Maksagak.
Born April 15, 1931 Bernard Harbour (Nalahugiuq) Nunavut.
Died January 22, 2009 Cambridge Bay, Victoria Island, Nunavut. Helen
married John Sr in 1950 and the couple settled in Cambridge Bay in 1961
to raise a family of six surviving children. Her home was often a refuge
for victims of domestic violence. In the was employed by the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police and managed an outreach centre. She was
appointed as Deputy Commissioner of the Northwest Territories in 1992.
Helen served as the Commissioner of the
Northwest Territories from January 16, 1995 until March 26, 1999 as the
1st Inuk to hold this office. She worked to establish the
new Territory of Nunavut. She was also
the 1st Commissioner of Nunavut from April 1, 1999 until April 1, 2000.
In 2003 she was appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada. She was
Assistant Commissioner of Nunavut from November 2005 until her death in
2009. She also served as a member of the Qulliit (Nunavut) Status of
Women Council and as an Elder for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.
Helen Maksagak Drive in Iqaluit is named in her memory. (2019) |
Louise
Frechette.
Born July
16, 1946 Montreal, Quebec. In 1970 she earned her BA from Université de
Montréal. In 1978 she earned an advanced Master’s Degree from the
College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium. In 1971 she began her career at the
Canadian Department of External Affairs. Her 1st posting as a
diplomat was in Athens, Greece and in 1978 she joined the Canadian
delegation at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1985 she was
a three point Canadian Ambassador to Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.
The government of Canada was impressed by her secret mission to Cuba in
1989 that she was named as the 1st
female Canadian ambassador to the United Nations in 1992.
Leaving the diplomatic corps in
1995 she became assistant Deputy Minister
of National Defense, again the 1st
woman to hold such a position.
March 2, 1998, she was the 1st
person to be appointed to the position of Deputy Secretary General, a
position she held until March 31, 2006.
That same year she was inducted into the Order of Canada.
She is a member of the Global Leadership Foundation and the
International Advisory Board at the Institute for the Study of
International Development at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec.
Source:
Former Deputy-Secretary-General,
www.un.org (accessed September 2010.);
Margaret
Weiers, Envoys Extraordinary: Women of the Canadian Foreign Service
(Toronto: Dundurn, 1995) |
Catherine
Callbeck.
Born July 26, 1939 Central
Bedeque, Prince Edward Island. She earned her bachelor of Commerce
degree from Mount Allison University, New Brunswick. She went on to earn
her Bachelor of Education from Dalhousie and worked as a business
teacher in New Brunswick and Ontario prior to returning home to PEI to
work in the family retail business. In 1974 she was elected to the
provincial legislature and held various cabinet positions including
Minister of Health and Social Service and Minister Responsible for
Disabled Persons. She then worked 10 years in the family business before
being elected in 1988 as a Liberal to the House of Commons in Ottawa. In
January 1993 she ran for the leadership of the Prince Edward Island
Liberal Party and became Premier on January 25, 1993 becoming the 1st
woman elected as a provincial Premier and the 2nd woman to be premier of
a province in Canada. She resigned in October 1996. She
was appointed to the Senate of Canada in September 1999 serving until
the mandatory retirement age July 25, 2014. She is a Member of the Order
of Canada. |
Joyce Fairbairn.
Born November 6, 1939 Lethbridge,
Alberta. She studied for a B.A. in Alberta and took her degree in
journalism from Carleton University in 1961. While at
Carleton she met Michael 'Mike' Gillian (1938-2002) and the pair became
soul mates. The couple had four children. After working as a
journalist in the Parliamentary Press Gallery she became Legislative
Assistant to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (1919-2000) for 14 years. She
also served at various positions in the Liberal Party of Canada. She was
appointed to the Senate of Canada in 1984. She is very proud to have
been inducted into the Kainai Chieftainship of the Blood Nation and
given the name of Morning Bird Woman. In
1993 she was appointed to the Privy Council of Canada and was the 1st
woman to be named Leader of the Government in the Senate
also serving as a Cabinet Minister with Special Responsibility for
Literacy. Sadly in August 2012 she began indefinite sick leave from the
senate due to the onset of Alzheimer's disease. She officially resigned
leaving the Senate January 18, 2013. In 2015 whe was inducted as a
Member of the Order of Canada. |
Mary J. May
Simon.
Born Kangiqsaulujjuaq, Nunivak, Quebec August 21, 1947. She was a member
of a family of eight children brought up in Canada’s arctic region.
Since her father was white, she and her siblings, by law, could not
attend school after grade 6 so their became schooled at home by their
father. All would graduate high school. May became an announcer and
producer of Inaktitut radio and television programs for CBC Northern
Services. She left the CBC to become Vice President and later President
of the Makivik Corporation which was established to oversee proper
implementation of provided resources for the Inuit peoples. In
1994 she became
Canada’s 1st ambassador for Circumpolar Affairs
and from 1999 to 2000 she was Ambassador to Denmark, the
first Inuit woman in this type of diplomatic role. In 2005 she received
an honourary degree from Trent University. In 1991 she became a member
of the Order of Canada and in 2005 an officer of the order. In 1992 she
received the Order of Quebec. She also holds the Gold Order of
Greenland. In 2011 she became special advisor to the Labrador Inuit
Association. She is also the founding Chair of the Arctic Children’s and
Youth Foundation to ensuring access to higher education for all who seek
it.
Source: Mary May Simon; Canada’s first Ambassador for Circumpolar
Affairs by Sierra Bacquie. Section15.ca accessed June 2011. ; Order
of Canada website. Accessed June 2011. |
Barbara Hall.
Born 1946. Barbara attended the University of Victoria, British Columbia
but left without obtaining the last two credits for her degree. She
moved to Nova Scotia to work with the rural Black families with the
Company of Young Canadians. In 1967, back in Ontario whe worked with
Toronto youth and co-founded an alternative school. After this she
worked a shot time as a probation officer in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A.
Back again in Canada she studied law at Osgood Hall, York University,
Toronto and took the bar in 1980. In 1885 she ran unsuccessfully with
the New Democratic Party (NDP) for the Ontario provincial legislature
but did win a seat that year on Toronto City Council. In 1994 she was
elected as the 61st mayor of Toronto and became the
1st Mayor of Toronto to march in a Pride Parade.
In 1997 she lost in her bid to continue as
Mayor of the new mega City of Toronto. She tried to gain the Mayoral
position again in 2003 without success. In November 2005 she was
appointed Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. On
March 16, 2015 she was appointed to a panel to conduct public
contributions on the governance of the Toronto District School Board. |
Judy Gingell.
Born November 26, 1946 Moose Lake, Yukon. Judy was the
founding Director of the Yukon Native Brotherhood in 1969.In 1980 she
was elected President of the Yukon Development Corporation. For
the next two decades she served on the executive council of the Yukon
Indian Women's Association and was a founding Director of Northern
Native Broadcasting. From 1989 through 1995 she served as the Chair for
the Council for Yukon Indians. In 1995 she
was appointed as the 1st Aboriginal Commissioner of the Yukon.
After she retired in 2000 she ran unsuccessfully in the Yukon
general election. In 2008 she was President of Kwanlin Development
Corporation. Judy married Donald Gingell and the couple have two
children. In 2009 she became a Member of the Order of Canada in
recognition of her promotion and advancement of Aboriginal rights.
(2019) |
Thelma J.
Chalifoux
Born February 8, 1929. Died
September 22, 2017. She did her post graduate studies at the Southern
Alberta Institute of Technology and the Chicago School of Interior
Design. She worked as a teacher and community organizer and was active
in both local and national Métis communities. She was the winner of the
National Aboriginal Achievement Award in 1995. She was the mother of
seven children and Grandmother to 30 grandchildren and 15 great
grandchildren!
She was appointed to the Senate of Canada in
November 26, 1997 becoming the 1st indigenous person to sit in the
Canadian Senate. She served in the senate until February
8, 2004. After retiring from the senate she relocated to Alberta where
she founded the Michif Cultural and Resource Institute, later called the
Michif Cultural Connections in St. Albert, Alberta to preserve, protect
and promote the rich Métis culture in northern Alberta. |
Vivienne Poy. Born May 15,
1941.
A fashion
designer, entrepreneur and author, Vivienne is
the 1st Canadian of Chinese descent to be a member of the Senate of
Canada, appointed in 1998. She was
educated in her native Hong Kong and England and holds a B.A., McGill
University, a M.A, & a PhD. from the University of Toronto, where she is
Chancellor Emeritus. Her extensive community endeavors include
being
involved with cultural and philanthropic causes across Canada. She is
Honourary Co-Chair for the Campaign for Diversity with the Canadian
Centre for Diversity, Honourary Patron of the Ottawa Chinatown Gateway
Project, and the International Centre of Winnipeg and remains an active
supporter of many other organizations.
She was instrumental in having May recognized as Asian Heritage Month in
Canada, and serves as Patron for Asian Heritage Month Societies in
cities across Canada. She was named a Trailblazer by Canada’s Top
100 Most Powerful Women (Women’s Executive Network), and received an
International Women's Day Award. In recognition of her
international influence, she has received honourary degrees from
universities around the world. |
Adrienne
Louise
Clarkson.
Born February 10 1939 Hong Kong.
Adrienne and her family immigrated to Canada in 1941 settling in Ottawa,
Ontario. A television personality with the Canadian Broadcast
Corporation (CBC), she is also a journalist, a novelist, a public
servant, and publisher.
She even had her own television show Adrienne Clarkson
Presents. In 1981 she promoted Ontario culture in France and
throughout Europe. In 1999
She was appointed
Governor General of Canada, the 1st immigrant
to hold this position. She served in this position until
2005. She is an officer in the Order of Canada.
On October 3, 2005, Clarkson was sworn into the
Queen's Privy Council for Canada.
She is the Colonel in Chief of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light
infantry and the founder of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship. |
Manitok
Catherine Thompson.
Born August 17, 1955 Coral Harbour, Northwest Territories. Manitok
graduated from the Teacher Education Program in Fort Smith in 1977 and
went on to teach in schools in Coral Harbour, Repulse Bay and
Yellowknife until 1983. She remained in the education field for the next
12 years, holding the positions of Coordinator of Interpreter Services
with the Stanton Yellowknife Hospital, Language Consultant, Inuktitut
Programs Specialist and high school teacher. Manitok was also an active
community volunteer, organizing the inaugural Keewatin Arts and Crafts
Festival, music festivals, Rankin Inlet’s Hamlet Days and was a member
of the Concerned Citizens against Drug and Alcohol Abuse. She also was a
volunteer pastor for a small church in Repulse Bay. In recognition for
her civic involvement she received the Volunteer Award for the Hamlet of
Rankin Inlet. In 1994, she entered politics at the municipal level as a
Counselor for Rankin Inlet and was appointed to the Nunavut Social
Development Committee. She was 1st elected to the Northwest Territories'
Legislature for the riding of Aivilik in a by-election on May 8, 1995,
and re-elected in October of the same year. While holding the cabinet
portfolios of Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs and Minister
responsible for the Women's Directorate she was a member of the Standing
Committee on Finance, the Standing Committee on Agencies, Boards and
Commissions and the Special Committee on Housing. On
February 15, 1999,
the 1st election for the new territory, she won a seat in the
Nunavut Legislature for the Rankin Inlet South/Whale Cove riding.
Manitok served as Nunavut’s 1st woman cabinet minister as
Minister responsible for Public Works and Services
and Minister responsible for the Nunavut Housing Corporation.
In 2001 she was named minister of Community Government and
Transportation and Minister responsible for Sport Nunavut. . Retiring
from territorial politics in 2004 she ran as an independent candidate in
the federal Canadian election in 2004 where she finished in 2nd
place. Manitok now works as an official with the territorial Nunavut
government. She is married to Tom Thompson and the couple have 2
children. |
Claudette
Boyer.
Born
January 9, 1938, Ottawa, Ontario. Died February 16, 2013. She attended
the University of Ottawa earning her BA and then her teacher’s
Certificate. She would teach in area schools for 30 years. She married
Jean-Robert Boyer and the couple raised three children. She was an
active member of the Association des enseignants et des enseignants
franco-Ontariens, the Ontario Teachers’ Federation and the Canadian
Teacher’s Federation. In 1982 she was elected as trustee to the Ottawa
Board of Education where she served until 1986. With the establishment
of a French Language School Board she joined the L ‘Association
Canadienne-Française de l ‘Ontario. In 1990 through 1994 she served as
President of the Ottawa –Vanier riding Association for the Liberal Party
of Ontario. She ran unsuccessfully for provincial legislature in 1994.
In 1999
she was successful and became Member of Provincial Parliament for
Ottawa Vanier.
She was the 1st
woman francophone Member of Provincial Parliament in the Ontario
Legislature.
She was appointed by the Premier as Liberal Critic for
Francophone Affairs. In 2001 she was removed from the Liberal Party and
was forced to sit in the legislature as an independent after she became
convicted of meddling in an accident case involving her husband. She
retired from Politics in 2003. |
Maryann Elizabeth Francis.
Born Sydney, Nova Scotia. From 1966 through 1970 Maryann practiced her
profession as a registered x-ray technologist. She then decided to earn
her BA at St. Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 1972 she
became a Human Rights Officer with the Nova Scotia Human Rights
Commission. In 1974 she received the Silver Plaque from the NSHRC for
outstanding contribution to her chosen filed. She took time to earn her
Masters of Public Administration from New York University in 1984.
From August 1999 through July 2006 she served as
the 1st woman permanent director of the Nova Scotia Human Rights
Commission. In 2000 she became the 1st woman appointed as Nova Scotia’s
Ombudsman. She was the 1st African Canadian woman to head the Ontario
Woman’s Directorate, a government organization supporting and
celebrating the achievement of women.
She served in this position from 1994 through July 1997. In 2006
Maryann Frances was appointed the Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia.
Source: Office of Nova Scotia Lieutenant-Governor online. Accessed June
2011. |
2000's |
Glenna Hansen.
Born
1956, Aklavik Northwest Territories. In 1990 she was hired as an
executive assistant by David Storr and Sons Contracting Ltd., Inuvik and
by 1996 she was general manager of the firm. Glenna feels strongly about
being involved in her community and has served as Chairperson of Aklavik
Education Advisory Board and the Inuvik Regional Educational Board. In
her business community she was a member of the boards of the Inuvik
Community Corporation and Western Artic Business Development Services.
She served on the Boards of directors of the Inuvialuit Investment
Corporation and the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation on behalf of her
people. She was unsuccessful in her run for a seat in the Northwest
Territories in 1999. In April 1 2000 she
was appointed the 14th Commissioner of the Northwest
Territories, the 1st person of Inuvialuit descent to hold the
position. She held this position
until 2005. The position is largely ceremonial akin to that of the
lieutenant-governor of a province. She ran again for the legislature in
2011 but was defeated. |
Mobina Jaffer
Born August 20, 1949 Kampala, Uganda. In 1972 she earned a bachelor of
law at London University, London, England. After immigrating to Canada
she was called to the bar in British Columbia where she opened her own
practice. She is married and the couple have two children. She was
appointed Queens Counsel in 1993. She ran unsuccessfully for a position
in the Canadian Parliament in a Vancouver riding in 1993 and also in
1997. 1994 through 1998 she was Vice President of the Liberal Party of
Canada. From 1998 to 2003 she was President of the National Women’s
Liberal Commission. She was appointed
the Senate of Canada on June 13, 2001 by Prime Minister Jean Creitien.
She is the 1st Muslim Senator in Canada and the 1st
of Asian descent.
From 2002 through 2006 she was Canada’s Special Envoy in Sudan.
2002-2005 she served as Chair on the Canadian Committee on women, peace
and security. 2003 and again in 2004 she was on the list of Canada’s Top
100 most powerful women.
Source:
Canada. Senate of Canada. Mabina Jaffer. Online accessed May 2013.
|
Phyllis Marion Boyd.
Born Toronto, Ontario March 26, 1946. She completed her studies at York
University and began working in areas that would define her future
political beliefs. She was awarded the Outstanding Young Londoner in
1986. and the Mary Campbell Community Service Award. She worked for
battered women's advocacy. The London status of women action group. And
the London coordination on family violence. She was elected as a member
of the provincial parliament of Ontario from London Centre in 1990 and
served in the provincial cabinet as Minister of Education and Minister
of Community and Social Services before becoming
the 1st woman and 1st non-lawyer to be Ontario Attorney General from
1993-1995. |
Beverly McLachlin.
née Gietz. Born September
7, 1943 at Pincher Creek, Alberta. She studied philosophy and law at the
University of Alberta where she earned the Gold Medal as top student.
She was called to the Bar in 1969 in Alberta and in 1971 in British
Columbia. She also taught at the University of British Columbia
from1974-1981 and became the 1st woman judge in the B.C.
County Court. Beverly was appointed to the Supreme Court of British
Columbia in 1981 and became Chief Justice of the province in 1988.
Shortly thereafter in March 1989 she was appointed to the Supreme Court
of Canada. She became the 1st
woman and 17th Chief Justice of the Canadian Supreme Court on
January 7, 2000. She is the
official Deputy Governor General. She is also Chairperson of the
Advisory Council for the Order of Canada and a member of the Privy
Council of Canada. She and her husband Roderick had one son. Widowed in
1988, and remarried Frank McCerdle in 1992. She has taken strong stand
on free speech and established a reputation for independent thinking. |
Rose-Marie Losier-Cool.Born
June 18, 1937 Tracadie, New Brunswick. A teacher by profession, she
taught for 20 years at Ecole secondaire Nepisiguit in Bathurst, New
Brunswick. She was elected the
1st woman president of the
Association des enseignantes et enseignants francophones du
Nouveau-Brunswick in 1983
and has sat on the board of directors of the Canadian Teachers'
Federation. She
was Teacher of the Year in New Brunswick in 1993. She entered into
politics by serving on several provincial and federal committees
including the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women.
She was appointed to the Senate of Canada March 21, 1995 retiring June
18, 2012. In
January 2004 she served as Government Whip, the 1st woman to hold this
position. |
Bev Oda. Born Thunder Bay, Ontario July
7, 1944. After earning her BA from the University of Toronto she began
her working career as a teacher but soon switched to broadcasting. She
worked with TV Ontario, City TV and the Global Television Network and
retired in 1999 from the position of VP with CTV and Baton Broadcasting.
She also served on the Canadian Radio and Television Commission. In
November 2003 she was inducted into the Canadian Association of
Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Her retirement was short lived as she ran
successfully as a member of Parliament in the Ontario riding of Durham
in
2004 and became Canada's 1st Japanese - Canadian
MP.
|
Michaelle Jean. Born
September 6 1957 Port au Prince, Haiti. She emigrated with her
family in 1968 to live in Canada’s Province of Quebec. After she
completed her Masters of Arts at the University of Montreal she took up
teaching. She also worked for the betterment in the lives of women and
children in crisis by contributing to the establishment of safe
shelters. Taking some time off work, she studied language arts in
Italy. She is fluent in five languages, French, English, Spanish,
Italian and Creole. Returning to Canada she began an energetic broadcast
journalism career with Radio-Canada and earned the right to have her won
show. Her journalistic efforts were put to use to create an awareness in
human rights. Her efforts gained her awards and recognition from the
Human Rights League of Canada, Amnesty International , Canada and awards
such as the Prix Mirelle-Lanctot, the Galaxi Award and being made a
Citizen of Honour by Montreal. She is married and has a daughter, Marie
Eden. She was
invested as Canada’s 27th and 1st
Afro-Caribbean Governor General in September 2005. |
Yonah Martin.
Born April 11, 1965 Seoul, Korea. Yonah immigrated to Canada with
her family in 1972. In 1986 she had earned her B.A. at the University of
British Columbia followed the next year with her Master’s in Education.
She proudly worked over twenty years as an educator. In 1990 she married
Doug Martin and the couple had one daughter. In 2003 she co-founded a
non-profit organization Korean Canadian C3, a community organization of
volunteers who embrace cultural diversity and bridge Korean Canadian
communities by providing cultural education and volunteer resources. She
has also served on numerous boards and committees including: the
Multicultural Advisory Council of British Columbia and the Canadian
Paralympics Foundation. As an educator she is interested in mentoring
youth and is actively involved with the Executive Mentorship Program of
the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia. In
2004 she received the Spirit of Community Award for Cultural Harmony and
in 2009 she received the Order of Civil Merit Moran Medal from the
Republic of Korea.
She
is the 1st Korean Canadian Parliamentarian, appointed to the Senate by
Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
|
2010's |
Melanie Mark.
Born
1976, Mount Pleasant, British Columbia. Melanie is Nisqu’a Gitxson Cree
and Ojibway by heritage. Her family was abandoned by her father and
Melanie and her family knew true hardship growing up. However Melanie
learned that she had to do something to move forward with her live. She
studied at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. She is the
mother of 2 daughters. She has been a facilitator and served as
president of the Urban Native Youth Association in Vancouver. She has
also been a coordinator with the National Aboriginal Youth and Save the
Children Canada in Vancouver. She is co-founder of Vancouver’s’
Aboriginal Policing Community Centre. In
February2, 2016 she ran in a
provincial by-election and became the 1st
Aboriginal woman to be elected to the Legislature of British Columbia. |
Elizabeth Evans
May. Born June 9, 1954 Hartford, Connecticut,
U.S.A. She relocated to Margaree Harbour Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in
1972. The family operated a gift shop and restaurant on a landlocked
schooner. She dropped out of St Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia
in 1974 returning hope to manage the family business while she took
correspondence courses and graduation with her Bachelor degree. She
attended and graduated law school at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova
Scotia and worked as an associate in a Halifax law firm. In 1985 she
relocated to Ottawa, Ontario to work with the Public Interest Advocacy
Center. She founded the Canadian Environmental Defence Fund to fund
groups and individuals in environmental causes. An Anglican she thought
of becoming a priest and studied theology at Saint Paul University,
Ottawa. A committed advocate for social justice, for the environment and
for human rights she has been active in the environmental movement since
1970. She was active against aerial spraying in Nova Scotia which
brought into the media spotlight. She was the 1st volunteer Executive
Director of Cultural Survival Canada 1989-1992 and worked for the
Algonquin of Barriere Lake from 1991-92. In 1985 she was recognized with
the International Conservation Award from Friends of Nature. In 1986 she
became a Senior Policy Advisor to the federal Environment Minister
and was instrumental in creating several national parks, In 1988 she
resigned being against the Ministers policies. She taught at Queen's
University School of Policy Studies and at Dalhousie University. She has
written since 1982 eight books mainly on environmental issues. In 1992
she received the Commemorative Medal for the 125th Anniversary of
Confederation of Canada. In 1998 the Elizabeth May Chair in Women's
Health and the Environment was established at Dalhousie University, Nova
Scotia. In 2014 she authored Who We Are: Reflections on My Life
and Canada. In 1989 she became Executive Director of the Sierra Club of
Canada but resigned in 2006 to run for the leadership of the Green Party
of Canada. In 2002 she was awarded the Harkin Award from the Canadian
Parks and Wilderness Society for her lifetime achievement in promoting
the protection of Canada's wilderness. She was elected leader of
the Green Party in August 2006. In 2005 she was inducted as an
Officer in the Order of Canada. She earned the United Nations Global 500
Award. In November 2010 Newsweek magazine named her 'One of the world's
most influential women. In 2011 she became
the 1st Green Party candidate to be elected to the House of Commons.
In 2012 she put forth a Private members bill, Bill c-442 to address
Lyme disease. The bill was passed unanimously by both houses of
parliament and the 1st Green Party legislation enacted in Canadian
history. In 2012 she was voted by her House colleagues as
Parliamentarian of the Year and in 2013 she was voted Hardest Working
Member of Parliament. In 2014 she was voted Best Orator in the House of
Commons. |
Kathleen O'Day Wynne. Born May
21, 1953 Toronto, Ontario. Kathleen earned her Bachelor of Arts degree
from Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario and then earned her
Master's Degree from the University of Toronto. She then attended the
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education to earn her teaching degree.
In 1996, she helped found Citizens for Local Democracy, which opposed
the efforts of Ontario's Progressive Conservative government to
amalgamate Metro Toronto. Among the many community endeavors she founded
the Metro Parent Network to support improvements in the public education
system. She married Phil Cowperthwaite and the couple had three
children. When she was 37 she came out as a lesbian living with her
partner Jan Rounthwaite. The pair were married in 2005. In
2000 Kathleen was elected to the public office as a Toronto District
School Board Trustee. In 2003 she was elected as a Provincial Member of
Parliament under a Liberal government where she served in various
cabinet posts. September 18, 2006 she was
appointed Minister of Education becoming the province's 1st openly
lesbian cabinet minister. She served as the 25th Premier
of Ontario from February 11, 2013
2013 to 2018. Kathleen is the 1st woman
to be Premier of Ontario and the 1st openly LGBT Premier in Canada.
She originally replaced Dalton McGinty as Premier after his resignation
and was elected to the position in 2014. Her premiership was not all
smooth sailing as she attempted to privatize Ontario Hydro and raised
the minimum wage to $14.00 per hour with an increase of another dollar
in the next year. It should be noted that the unemployment rate in
Ontario became lower than the national average in 2015. The Liberals ,
under Premier Wynne not only lost the 2018 provincial election but the
Liberal Party also lost it's official party standing. |
Jocelyne Roy-Vienneau.
Born 1956, Newcastle, New Brunswick. Jocelyne was one of the 1st
women to graduate from the Université of Moncton in Engineering. She
went on to earn her Master’s degree in Public Administration from her
university and then her provincial teaching certificate. She began her
career as a Project Engineer at the Esso Imperial Oil Limited, Montreal.
She was the 1st woman Vice President of the Université de
Moncton and the 1st woman to direct a francophone community
college in New Brunswick. Jocelyne married Ronald Vienneau and the
couple has two children. She served as Assistant Deputy Minister,
Post-Secondary Education, for the province of New Brunswick. In 2003 she
was Alumni of the Year at the Université de Moncton’s Engineering
Faculty. In
August 2014 she was appointed as the 1st Acadian women to be
Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick.
In 2015 she received the Paul Harris Fellow from the Shediac Rotary
Club. |
Bardish Chagger. Born April 6, 1980 Waterloo,
Ontario. The Chagger family immigrated from Punjab, India to Waterloo,
Ontario in the 1970's. At 13 she was a volunteer in the 1993 federal
election for the local candidate in Waterloo. She attended the
University of Waterloo and became an executive assistant the Waterloo
Liberal member of parliament from 1993 to 2008. With her employer
defeated in the 2008 election she became a director of special events
for the Kitchener-Waterloo Multicultural Centre. In 2013 she was elected
to the House of Commons in Ottawa. November 4, 2015 she became Minister
of Small Business and Tourism. August 19,
2016 she was sworn is a Leader of the Government in the House of
Commons, the 1st woman to hold this position. She is an
active volunteer with Interfaith Grand River, the Heart and Stroke
Foundation, and the Waterloo Rotary Club. Rotary Club. Bardish is the
recipient of the Pink Attitude Evolution’s “Woman of the Year” award and
the Waterloo Region Record’s “40 under 40” award. |
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