Parliamentary Trailblazers in

Grace MacInnis, Rosemary Brown, OC, OBC OC, OBC

1965 – First woman 1972 – First black

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Grace MacInnis was born in Winnipeg, her three-year term, she championed medicare, pensions, Rosemary Brown was born in Jamaica in In B.C.’s Legislative Assembly, Rosemary Brown Manitoba in 1905. She attended the University of adequate living conditions, consumer affairs and 1930. She moved to Canada in 1951 to attend McGill championed measures to improve women’s working and Manitoba and the Sorbonne before training as a teacher accessible birth control. University and to British Columbia in 1955 where she social conditions. She also called for improved services at the Ottawa Normal School. completed a graduate degree in social work. for the elderly, the disadvantaged, immigrants and people In 1965, Grace MacInnis was elected to the Canadian with disabilities. Grace MacInnis soon left teaching to act as secretary House of Commons as the MP Rosemary Brown was employed as a social worker and to her father, James Shaver Woodsworth, a Member for -Kingsway, the first time a woman who university counsellor in the 1960s, a time when both In 1995, Rosemary Brown was awarded the Order of of Parliament (MP) and the founder and leader of the had served as a B.C. MLA had won a federal riding. In women and Canadians of African and Caribbean ancestry British Columbia. The following year, she was installed as Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), a social the House of Commons, Grace MacInnis was a forceful were struggling for equality and better representation in an Officer of the Order of Canada. democratic party that emerged during the 1930s in proponent of women’s equality and advocated for the public life. Canada. She was a charter member of the CCF – which removal of abortion from the Criminal Code. would later become the New Democratic Party – and the In the 1972 provincial election, Rosemary Brown president of its British Columbia branch. In 1975, Grace MacInnis was installed as an Officer of ran successfully as the New Democratic Party (NDP) the Order of Canada. In 1990, she was awarded the candidate in the riding of Vancouver-Burrard, becoming In 1941, Grace MacInnis was elected to B.C.’s Legislative Order of British Columbia. the first black woman elected to a legislature in Canada. Assembly as the MLA for Vancouver-Burrard. Throughout She was re-elected three times, serving until 1986.

1965 1972 1972 1975

Grace MacInnis Rosemary Brown Eileen Elizabeth Dailly is the first Grace McCarthy is the first is the first woman from B.C. is elected to the B.C. woman in B.C. to serve as acting female Deputy Premier in elected to the Canadian Legislative Assembly, President of the Executive Council Canada House of Commons the first black woman elected to a provincial legislature in Canada