The Honourable Cairine Reay Mackay Wilson (1885-1962)

Backgrounder

The Honourable Cairine Reay Mackay Wilson was the first woman to be appointed to the Senate in Canada, and as such, embodies the conclusion of the Persons Case allowing women to sit in the Senate. Her appointment in 1930 marked the end of an era during which women in Canada were denied civil rights. It also gave substance to the right of women to sit in the Upper Chamber, a right granted in a 1929 decision by the Privy Council in London. Through her work as an organizer and senator, Cairine Wilson contributed to the advancement of women in the public sphere. She also campaigned for the admission of refugees and the release of interned refugees during the Second World War, and for liberalized immigration laws and other progressive measures.

Born in Montréal on February 4, 1885, Cairine Reay Mackay married Norman F. Wilson, the Liberal Member of Parliament for Russell, Ontario, in 1909. In 1919, the Wilson family moved to Ottawa, where Mrs. Wilson soon became heavily involved in politics. She contributed to the founding of the National Federation of Liberal Women of Canada in 1928 and of the Twentieth Century Liberal Association in 1930.

In the Senate, Cairine Wilson supported legislative measures designed to promote equal opportunity and independence for women. She called for easier access to divorce, and denounced the Naturalization Act, whereby Canadian women would lose their citizenship if they married a man of another nationality.

In 1936, Senator Wilson began to take an interest in the fate of European refugees fleeing from the Nazis. She was president of the League of Nations Society in Canada from 1936 onward, of the Canadian National Committee on Refugees from 1938 to 1948, and of the Senate Standing Committee on Immigration and Labour. In 1949, she became the first woman named to a Canadian United Nations delegation. In 1950, she was named Knight of the Legion of Honour by France in recognition of her assistance to French refugees during the Second World War.

Cairine Wilson died on March 3, 1962, at the age of 77. A marble bust, unveiled in 1960, stands in the Senate antechamber commemorating the work of this great philanthropist and Canada’s first female senator.

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Hon. Catherine McKenna Parks Canada History and Archaeology