Atlantis Vol. 11 No. 1 Fall/Automne 1985

The Political Career of Senator Cairine Wilson, 1921-62

Franca Iacovetta York University

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the career of Cairine Wilson - 's first senator, a liberal feminist, peace activist and humanitarian. Wilson's outlook was shaped by her commitment to an evangelical Christian liberal tradition and to maternal feminism. Her feminism is explored with respect to her involvement in reform institutions such as the League of Nations Society and the National Committee on Refugees, and her support for women's issues in the Senate. While there were serious class and gender limitations to Wilson's reformist maternal feminism, her long-standing presence among liberal and humanitarian elements in Canadian politics from 1920 to f962 presented an ongoing challenge to conservative administrators and thus illustrates the contribution bourgeois feminists can make to Canadian politics and society.

In February, 1930, one year after five Albertan ers feminine dresses. She seemed to oblige the suffragists had established the right of a women latter group by attending her swearing-in to sit in the Canadian Senate,1 Prime Minister ceremony frocked in a stunning powder blue Mackenzie King recommended the appointment lace gown, matching satin shoes and a bouquet of Cairine Wilson to the Upper Chamber. of orchids.3 When addressing the Senate, Wilson Apparently relieved that King had not chosen similarily felt obliged to reassure her new male the most likely candidate, fiesty Judge Emily colleagues by making clear her intentions to ful• Murphy, the Evening Journal reported: fill all the responsibilities of her new position "Mrs. Wilson is the very antithesis of the short- without neglecting her domestic duties.4 "I haired reformer...that unlovely type which talks trust," she stated, "that the future will show that of Freud and...the latest novel and poses as an while engaged in public affairs the...mother of a intellectual." Rather, Wilson was "of the much family by reason of her maternal instinct will more appealing and competent kind who make remain the guardian of the home." While her a success of...taking care of a home and...family comments were neither innovative nor surpris• before meddling with and trying to make a suc• ing, they probably served their intended pur• cess of everything else."2 The focus of reporting pose. Yet, her next gesture was decidedly bold soon shifted towards predictable discussions and dramatic. At the risk of tarnishing her about an appropriate dress code for a woman "appealing" image, Wilson took the occasion to politician, with some columnists encouraging acknowledge the heroic struggles of Canadian the senator to wear inconspicuous suits and oth• women throughout history and, moreover, to link her new honours with the political strug• constructed, and found themselves without a gles of earlier feminists in Canada. Specifically, coherent political and economic programme for she expressed her indebtedness to "five women complete liberation. Even the professionally from Alberta" — , Nellie inclined "new woman" of the post-war period McClung, Irene Parlby, Henrietta Muir Edwards not only accepted the prevailing image of femi• and Louise McKinny — whose victory in the ninity as gentle, innocent and mildly coquettish "person's case" made possible Wilson's appoint• but she also sought marriage and family as ment to the Senate.5 So the Message was out. The necessary conditions of womanhood.6 new senator was well mannered and likely would not cause serious trouble; but while not as Yet, the post-World War One period did not radical as some of her foremothers she was none• witness a total stagnation of reform initiatives. theless politically ambitious and a liberal femi• Women continued to participate in public nist not afraid to acknowledge the virtues of her health campaigns and long-term suffragists predecessors. such as Albertan Liberal MLA Nellie McClung and UFA representative Irene Parlby remained Canadian feminist historians have ignored in politics and progressive movements. Others Cairine Wilson despite her rich and lengthy including McClung and Lady Aberdeen of the career. Having dubbed the 1920s and 1930s as the National Council of Women, also turned their era of the decline of feminism in Canada, scho• efforts towards internationalist and peace cam• lars have sought to explain why in spite of sig• paigns. In light of the earlier defeat of class and nificant legal, educational and political victo• gender-linked forms of feminism, however, the ries, many Canadian women (though not all, kind of feminism that held the best hope of and certainly not the old vanguard) shunned making some in-roads on the post-war Cana• activism after World War One. Explanations dian political scene was a loosely structured correctly focussed on the failure of earlier femi• liberal-reformist maternal feminism that called nists (who viewed their public activities as part for social and political reforms but that did not of their maternal responsibilities) to understand fundamentally challenge the structural and that their actions signalled a fundamental break ideological roots of women's oppression under with women's traditional domesticity. Moreover, capitalist patriarchy. Given the reality of the by forging links with a variety of late Victorian Liberal hegemony over post-war Canadian reform movements, the campaign for female suf• politics, the respectability of bourgeois femi• frage became detached from a purely women's nism probably also depended on its being pres• rights platform, with its critique of the repres• ented to Parliament and the Canadian public sive features of traditional marriage, and the rad• under a Liberal banner.7 ical minority that led the campaign for total equality for women. Instead, the suffrage Cairine Wilson emerged as a feminist politi• movement became identified with the efforts of cian in this period. She was Canada's first moderate, middle-class reformers seeking to pre• woman senator, a liberal feminist, peace activist serve the family and Christian values in an and a humanitarian. Wilson's social and politi• urbanizing and industrializing society. By the cal philosophy was shaped primarily by two turn of the century, feminism's earlier link with related ideologies. First and foremost was her spiritualism, labour and democratic radicalism commitment to a nineteenth-century Gladsto- had given way to a narrower notion of maternal nian liberalism which combined religious and feminism that focussed on women's motherly political notions of duty in the belief that Chris• contribution to family and state. As a result, tianity could have a purifying impact on the feminists lacked an analysis of gender as socially political process. A staunch Presbyterian, Wil- son viewed politics as a way of performing God's sures for working and poor mothers. Moreover, work on earth, and she sought to fulfill that the significance of Wilson's long career, which objective by supporting humanitarian causes, spanned from 1920 until 1962, should not be including world peace, the re-settlement of Jew• underestimated. In spite of her moderate femi• ish refugees and the medical and social work of nism, Wilson's long-standing presence among the League of Nations. Wilson's Christianity liberals and humanitarians in Canadian politics and her liberalism, in turn, fuelled her commit• presented an ongoing challenge to conservative ment to maternal feminism. She believed that administrators. It also illustrated the nature of women's public demands were a logical exten• the contribution that middle-class, professional sion of women's maternal responsibility and women could make to politics and to a feminist their moral superiority as well as the inevitable movement in Canada. Maternal feminism was result of the application of democratic princi• fraught with ambiguities and political short• ples to women. Wealthy, professional, politi• comings, but it also provided an increasingly cally well-connected and a mother of eight, Wil• acceptable ideological vehicle for expanding son strikingly resembled the ideal late-nine• women's participation in the public sphere. teenth-century maternal feminist. Far from a radical, she appealed to Canadians as an excep• Born Cairine Reay Mackay on 4 February, tional Superwoman who could successfully bal• 1884 in West End , Wilson's father, ance a demanding career and a large family. One Robert Mackay, was a wealthy and influential male senator went so far as to call her the "ideal Scottish businessman in Montreal and a Liberal Canadian woman and all the best that is in senator. Her mother, June Baptist, was a woman womanhood."8 of Scottish and French-Canadian descent and the daughter of a Trois Rivieres lumber-baron. Still, too much can be made of such conserva• Cairine grew up as one of four children in the tism. Indeed, the recent emphasis on the conser• privileged comfort of the Anglophone bourgeoi• vative and accommodationist character of the sie of Montreal. One newspaper described her suffrage movement underestimates its truly radi• childhood in graphic terms: "she had nurses, cal dimension, for the presence of women in the governesses, child specialists, tutors, attended public domain challenged centuries old tradi• private schools, took music, French, painting, tions. So too did women's demands for citizen• learned to ride."9 However, she did not go to ship, whatever the justification for them. college. Instead, she attended two private ladies' Although feminism did not always occupy a academies in Montreal where, as she later central position in Wilson's politics, she clearly recalled, "we were always called 'Young Ladies' shared with her feminist predecessors a vision of and heard often of that most desirable attribute, a peaceful and co-operative world purged of the soft low voice of a woman."10 Continuing on masculine values of competition and aggression. a traditional route, in 1909, twenty-four year old Toward that end, she worked for years with var• Cairine married Norman F. Wilson, a wealthy ious Church and reform organizations, includ• Montreal lumberman and a one-time Liberal ing the Presbyterian Church and its Women's MP for Russell County. She was also a noted Missionary Society, the Red Cross, the Victorian philanthropist, an avid sportswoman and a Order of Nurses and the Ottawa Welfare Bureau, popular socialite. Predictably, though, she con• as well as the Young Women's Christian Associ• sidered the five girls and three boys to whom she ation and the National Council of Women of gave birth over the next ten years to be among Canada. In the Senate she supported women's her greatest personal and social achievements, issues, such as more liberal divorce laws, equal for as she often noted, "mother love is the strong• pay and equal access to jobs, and welfare mea• est instinct of woman's nature."11 Wilson's Victorian upbringing profoundly third kind of Christian — the "active Christian" shaped her attitude towards social and political — whom Wilson admired. She praised such action. Under the dominating influence of its "militant Christians" as the Prysbyterian mis• patriarchal head, the MacKay family was sionary women for courageously and selflessly strongly evangelical in its approach to the devoting their energies and resources on behalf responsibility of the rich and powerful to per• of the underprivileged of Asia and Africa.15 Sim- form public service. A public-spirited man, ilarily, she supported politicians who actively Robert Mackay founded in 1870 the family- promoted the work of the League of Nations operated Mackay Institute for the Deaf.12 He also (and later the United Nations) as true Christians impressed upon his children their duty to follow devoted to rebuilding a world upon the ideas of his example and combine a lucrative career with "brotherly love and co-operation."16 an active Christian life. Defending her father's strict approach to childrearing, Wilson ap• Described as "a Scots Liberal who worshipped plauded his making the same demands of his at the Shrine of Gladstone and Bright,"17 Robert daughters as he did of his sons. "Father," she Mackay also imparted to his daughter a belief in noted, "felt, that girls should do something pur• the superiority of liberalism and the tradition of poseful — study, become something, go beyond Gladstone. Although Wilson admitted that the fashion magazines."13 Following her father's growing up in a protective family denied her the lead, young Cairine became involved in volun• opportunity "to develop a sense of self- teer work in the Presbyterian Church. She did expression and independence," and to "over• charity work for the Church's Homes for Unwed come a great natural timidity," politics provided Mothers and she supported the overseas work of an attractive outlet for a young woman reared in the Women's Missionary Society. As a senator, a deeply politicized environment.18 As one she continued to host countless teas and fund• newspaper reported shortly after her Senate raisers, and she also contributed to The Presby• appointment, "Mrs. Wilson grew up in an terian Record and the Women's Missionary atmosphere redolent with political decision, and Society newsletter, Glad Tidings. (she) cannot remember the time when she did not know intimately the chief political and eco• In the tradition of evangelicalism, Wilson nomic issues in the Dominion."19 As a girl, she associated Christianity with a commitment to was read long passages on the philosophies of philanthropic and reform work aimed at Liberal Scots, particularly John Fox, John improving the lot of humankind, "f'm a Presby• Bright and William Ewart Gladstone.20 Under terian," she informed a reporter in 1930, "and her father's guidance, Wilson associated the tra• there's the everlasting job of trying to be of some dition they represented with the Liberal party in real use in the world; trying to make life a little Canada. This was reinforced by her family's brighter, a little more tolerable for the unfortu• long-standing connections with prominent Canadian Liberals, including nate."14 Elsewhere, she singled out three types of Christians. The first, an insincere Christian, (whom Wilson idolized as the country's greatest "stands aside to let somebody else assume the national stateman) and later, Mackenzie King.21 responsibility." Somewhat better, the next type is at least "willing to undertake the work if it What most attracted Wilson to liberalism was does not place too great demands upon his or her the unity Gladstone perceived between politics time and money." Unfortunately, most fell into and religion. He had sought to give his desire for this category of "cosy little Christians" satisfied religious service practical effect in politics with their regular attendance at Church and through the Liberal party. This involved an uninterested in changing the world. It was the almost obsessive devotion to humanitarian and reform causes on behalf of society's underprivi• maintained that the struggle "for human rights leged. Wilson made this commitment thecentral ... justice to the poor, the suffering, and the precept of her public career.22 She called herself a backward peoples of the world," was to be led by Gladstonian Liberal, and she shared with her the educated and propertied citizens of the indus• political colleagues, including William Lyon trial nations of Western Europe. The wretched Mackenzie King, a conviction that a liberal and the uncivilized coloured populations of the democratic tradition, infused with Christian world's poor countries would eventually come precepts, would endure conservative and radical under the enlightening umbrella and the homo• attacks against it. Indeed, she viewed parliamen• genizing influence of Christianity and western tary democracy as the political expression of modernity - not to mention British customs and Christianity. "The relation between Christian• institutions!27 ity and self-government," she observed, "has long been recognized. Thomas Mann put it thus, While it seems obvious that her father pro• 'Democracy is nothing but the political name for vided Wilson with a role model of committed the ideals of Christianity.'"23 True to the tradi• Christianity and democratic liberalism, it is not tion, Wilson believed that the democratic pro• clear when Wilson became a feminist. She did cess was premised on intelligent debate and the not participate directly in the suffrage move• political education of the masses, "education in ment, although for years she had worked with citizenship and political responsibility." reform groups that eventually pledged their Moveover, the fate of democracy lay in the support for the franchise. Significantly, Wilson "ideals of its people and the willingness of each did not enter active politics until after she had individual to serve his or her community or been married for ten years and had given birth to country."24 Such commitment went beyond a all of her children. Like many of her feminist simple exercise of the franchise and demanded as predecessors, her decision to enter public life well that people publicly express their opinions reflected to a remarkable degree her disillusion• and accept their historic role to keep their elected ment with her dependent existence as an upper- overnments responsible to people. "If we claim middle class housewife. In a 1931 Canadian the right to express our opinions," she Home Journal article, Wilson admitted: explained, "we must accept responsibility for what [governments] do."25 My marriage brought me great happiness, but deprived me of practically all outside These convictions gave Wilson a genuine companionship. For ten years I devoted sense of optimism, despite the reality she con• myself so exclusively to the management of fronted in her lifetime — a world torn apart by three houses (in Montreal, Ottawa and St. the Great Depression, two world wards, and Andrews-by-the-Sea, New Brunswick) and facism. Such challenges, she believed, could only the care of my children that a blunt doctor be met through the devoted work of true Chris• finally brought me up with a start. Never tians. During a speech on behalf of European had he seen any person deteriorate men• Jewish refuees in 1939, Wilson expressed a famil• tally as I had, he told me, and from an iar argument, insisting that Canadians "cannot intelligent girl I had become a most unin• yield to despair however grim the prospects...No teresting individual. I have been grateful matter how dark the outlook, faith and hope are since that date for his frank words, for it the essence of our religion." She called upon caused me to realize that the work which I Canadians to act decisively "as Christians" and had always considered my duty was not to use their governments to promote a better sufficient. At once I made a determined world.26 On a more ethnocentric note, she also effort not to merit such condemnation and Soon after she became an active Liberal party have endeavoured to keep alert.28 worker in 1921, Wilson earned a solid reputation as an efficient organizer and a feminist commit• The sources do not allow us to make definitive ted to enlarging women's participation within statements about why Wilson chose to enter the party. She organized the woman's committee politics rather than some other public career. In that worked for King's f 930 ccampaign, and she a 1930 interview she admitted that her "social helped to organize the Young Liberals, in which equals" could not understand why a woman of her daughters were active. She also founded the wealth, social prestige and a large family would Eastern Liberal Women's Association want "to tackle politics in so practical a way." and the Ontario Women's Liberal Club. Her She simply explained that politics had always greatest party achievement, the National Federa• appealed to her and that she liked the challenge tion of Liberal Women (NFLW), substantially and excitement. Moreover, not only had she held elevated the status of Liberal women by making her father in high esteem as a politician, but she the party's chief policy-making body equally accessible to the women's as well as the men's also admired the many politicians she had met association. At Wilson's insistence, the NFLW during her long years of contact with the Liberal fostered research into social, economic and polit• party brass.29 ical matters so it could better offer informed proposals to the party.54 It also issued a formal A model of maternal feminism supplied Wil• request that "strong women" be encouraged to son with an ideological justification for entering run as candidates in future elections.35 These public life. It also provided her with a political changes were greeted with hostility and resent• programme. Far from accepting cynical denun• ment from many male party members who ciations about the failure of women to radicalize believed that women should remain in politi• the political process, Wilson believed that the cally inferior auxiliary committees.36 Neverthe• women's suffrage movement provided impor• less, Wilson's patience eventually paid off, as her tant political lessons. Feminist politicians were Senate appointment demonstrates. obliged to educate, and co-operate with, their more progressive male colleagues so that together they might force the introduction of Significantly, Wilson's commitment to the legal and economic reforms.30 This placed heavy feminization of politics cut across party lines. In demands on women politicians who were countless speeches delivered to political, union expected to prove their competence in public and women's organizations, Wilson encouraged affairs and push for feminist reforms without women to become politically involved and to alienating their male colleagues. Only then pressure their government into legislating pro• would women receive the attention they gressive social and legal measures. The vote had deserved as the nation's "natural reformers."31 empowered women, and Wilson called upon Stopping far short of any radical platform, Wil• them to use their self-sacrificing character to son even cautioned women against making rash promote social reforms.37 declarations because they might jeopardize the gains they had made to date. Wilson did envision The abolition of war was a top priority. Wil• a future when, as she put it, "my children will son argued that women had a mission to have less and less use for party politics as con• improve the world: "women feel impatient of ducted in the old partisan [sic] lines,"32 but she the man-governed world with its succession of also believed that the present task at hand called wars, and realize that we must discover a way to for reforming the mainstream/malestream Can• bring peace."38 As a way to combat men's hawk- adian political process.33 ishness, women, she argued, "must stand for the principle of co-operation and tolerance," and As a result, women have been denied their natu• they must "promote legislation which benefits ral capacity for peaceful, collective action and women and children."39 She believed that for important and meaningful work. Forced into women had a special interest as women to pro• a state of submission, women were expected to mote peace and create a better society for their link their fates to the exploits of their men. children, tasks for which women were specially Indeed, they were forced to compete for the suited by virtue of their nurturing qualities.40 favours of men: each woman strove to supplant Significantly, however, men were not excluded the other and we were accused of jealousy and from the same responsibility. Going beyond the strife.44 Wilson observed that even "famous narrow connection between motherhood and women"whose accomplishments challenged the social conscience, Wilson understood that gender inequities of their day had failed to women as human beings shared a fundamental develop a feminist and collectivist consciousness interest with men in the preservation of a around the need to improve the position of healthy, peaceful world. Without the abolition women as a group, attesting to the extent to of war, there was no hope for the human race.41 which the dominant values of patriarchal society were deeply imbedded.45 There were definite limitations to Wilson's feminism, particularly to the extent that it deve• This is not to suggest that Wilson did not loped in tandem with her liberalism and its support the individual exploits of pioneer emphasis on slow, evolutionary change. With women for she frequently reduced women's his• regard to the role of women in transforming the tory to a list of first women.46 Nevertheless, she deeply imbedded material and ideological struc• paid constant tribute to the past efforts of women tures of patriarchal society, Wilson offered a to circumvent male prerogative and sexual reformist package which would enable women inequality. With their capacity to endure physi• to earn the privileges currently permitted only to cal handicaps and demanding domestic duties, men. Although she avoided any explicit discus• the Bronte Sisters were special heroines for Wil• sion of class relations, Wilson clearly believed son, and she described them as writing under that well educated, professional, middle-class conditions which would have daunted any ordi• native-born Canadian women were the natural nary mortal.47 She observed how women artists leaders of the feminist movement in Canada. such as Jane Austen and George Elliot were Education and training, as well as the time and forced to conceal their crafts and that even Flor• money to pursue them were crucial assets in the ence Nightingale was criticized during the Cri• struggle against male privilege, but so were mean War for stepping beyond her rightful respectability and the proper political and social sphere.48 Closer to home, Wilson repeatedly connections. As a by-product of the victories of praised the early pioneer and missionary women bourgeois women, feminine values would of Canada, who braved the horrors of the dread• slowly but irrevocably infiltrate the political and ful ocean voyage and the uncertain terrors of the social processes of the nation, indeed of the new land to establish homes and bring news of world.42 Christ to the Indian peoples and to minister to the sick, both colonists and Indians.49 Marie Notwithstanding such limits, Wilson had an Herbert, the first white woman to settle in acute consciousness of the reality of women's and to bear the first white child, was oppression throughout history. For thousands usually singled out for specific praise for preach• of years, she noted, we have been obliged to ing Christianity to the Indians, and for taking accept a man-made estimate of our capabilities care of the sick and wounded during the early 50 and to rely for recognition upon [men's] favour.43 years of the French colony. It was not merely political opportunism that Founded in 1921, the league of Nations led Wilson to declare her Senate appointment a Society was devoted to world peace, and its significant achievement for Canadian woman• members included various liberals and reformers hood. Although well aware that Prime Minister in the country, among them, Reverend CE. Sil- King had chosen her as a safe alternative to the cox of the United Church and Anglican Canon more outspoken and more radical Emily W. W. Judd. Professor Strong-Boag has recently Murphy, Wilson also felt that she was being argued that those prominent men who chaired fairly rewarded for years of loyal service to the the organization eventually turned it over to the party. During those years it seems that Wilson women who comprised the majority of the had also developed a fuller commitment to mat• Society's membership. By the thirties, the ernal feminism. Politically, she now associated Society was primarily a women's peace organi• herself with the suffragists and was careful not to zation chaired by Senator Wilson.53 She and her distinguish between the radical advocates of colleagues sought to arouse public support for women's rights and the more conservative the League of Nation's international peace• reformers who had participated in the suffrage keeping activities, including arms limitation, tariff reductions and social and health pro• campaign .v Much later in her career she even attributed the emergence of the women's suf• grammes. Wilson identified the Society's prior• frage movement to the vision and courage of Dr. ity as that of focussing attention on the responsi• Emily Stowe,51 a natural rights suffragist and bility of Canadians "to express our wishes and founder of the first woman's suffrage association desires as to the kind of peace that we want for in Canada. Upon taking office, Wilson insisted Canada and the world."54 that her new status was the natural outcome of the pioneering efforts of earlier feminists": My Working in close co-operation with Church, promotion has come so easily that...I should like women and veteran's clubs, the Society organ• to give credit to the members of my sex, who have ized disarmament conferences and established struggled so long and courageously for these local branches across the country. At Wilson's privileges which we accept naturally today."52 encouragement, NCWC local councils con• ducted many membership and fund-raising It is impossible to separate the strands of Wil• drives.55 Wilson campaigned vigorously to con• son's feminism from her devotion to a Christian vince active club and Church women to take up and liberal view of the world. Indeed, liberalism the cause of international politics and world and feminism emerged as complimentary and peace. Calling on them "to use their influence to mutually reinforcing elements in her social and promote a better understanding between political philosophy, and they lay at the source nations," she argued that women were capable of her tremendous capacity for humanitarian of averting the human disasters which men work. Wilson was a humanitarian par excel• seemed invariably to cause. War grew out of lence and no serious study of her career can men's greed and ambition, and if women "who ignore the intimate link between her humanitar- realize the futility of war and the suffering it ianism and her feminism. Both grew out of her entails" had taken an interest, "wars would have desire to perform God's work on earth. Among been a thing of the past. "56 In an uncharacteristic the many causes to which she devoted her explosion of anger in the Spring of 1933, Wilson energy, Wilson took particular pride in the work castigated armament manufacturers and hawk• she performed on behalf of the League of ish national statesmen for engaging in war as a Nations Society of Canada and its brainchild, profit-making venture: "Were the warlords and the Canadian National Committee for Refugees. manufactures of ammunition required to stand in the trenches, we should not be forced to war modern warfare had become more humane as for national aggrandizement."57 more soldiers survived the ordeal, Wilson made a mockery of his assertion: "For the wife or mother During the thirties, as the world moved who loses a son or husband, it makes little differ• towards another war, the League of Nations and ence that 99 per cent are saved if the loved one its Canadian branch came under a great deal of loses his life or returns home a helpless cripple." criticism. Staunchly defending the League of She added: "the slaughter and devastation of the Nations against charges that its purpose had late world conflict had already disproved the become meaningless and irrelevant, Wilson assertion."60 observed that critics and supporters alike stressed only the League's ambitious military objectives Despite Wilson's efforts, the League of without considering its contributions to health Nations Society could barely withstand such sus• and medicine and to its attempt to solve social tained public attack. Ironially, the Jewish refu• and labour problems. Insisting that the League gee crisis served to revitalize the Society and its "seeks not merely to prevent wars which are leaders, and it led to the creation of the National looming on the horizon, but to remove the Committee on Refugees (CNCR) in October causes of war through the friendly co-operation f 938. The CNCR emerged as a direct response to of the peoples of all countries," Wilson pres• Hitler's annexation of Austria and Czechoslova• ented an impressive list of the League's activi• kia and the subsequent Munich Settlement, a ties. These included its supervision of thousands sequence of events that resulted in thousands of of prisoners of war returned to their original or Jews seeking shelter on the continent and in adopted home immediately after the First World Great Britain.61 Its origin also coincided with the War, its rescue work on behalf of Turkish and decision of the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) Christian women forcibly evicted from their non-denominational anti-Nazi lobby group. homes during the Middle East wars of the 1920's, Moreover, the CJC largely funded the CNCR's and its creation of an international communica• campaign and helped to establish local branches tions system to detect and regulate the spread of across the country, although it did so covertly in the plague, cholera and small pox in Asia, Aus• order to avoid having the Committee discredited 58 tralia and Africa. as a "Jewish front."62 Local Church and NCWC councils also organized chapters. Senator Wil• As the attacks grew, Wilson reused to give any son acted as Chair of the CNCR. ground on the issue. In 1934 she defended the League against a colleague's claim that it had The aims of the NCR were two-fold. First, it fallen into the hands of extremist pacifists by lobbied King's administration for the immediate observing that the Canadian branch of the liberalization of Canada's existing restrictionist League included numerous veterans with honour• immigration regulations in order to permit the able war records. Moreover, she again pointed entry of substantial numbers of Jewish refugees, an accusing finger at the "provocative and sinis• particularly skilled workers and entrepreneurs. ter influence" of armament manufacturers who Secondly, it embarked upon an educational were operating at huge profits despite the inter• campaign with the hopes that by exposing Can• national depression. The only way to eliminate adians to the reality of the Nazi horrors and the their insidious presence was to call for "total desperate plight of European Jewry it would discontinuance by nations of the manufacture "instill in them a more sympathetic attitude 59 and sale of armaments. " When another senator toward the reception of refugees."63 Wilson cer• supported a motion for Canada's withdrawal tainly believed that the calamity of the crisis was from the League on the dubious grounds that sufficient to motivate Canadians to offer their homes to Jews. Following the government's tinued to support child immigration schemes.70 decision in the fall of 1938 to accept thousands of In 1950 France made her a Knight of the Legion Sudeten refugees, she also believed that Cana• of Honour for her courageous work on behalf of dian politicians would come around on the Jew• Jewish refugee children in Europe.71 ish question.64 But neither Wilson nor her col• leagues could have anticipated the virtually After the war, Wilson continued to support impenetrable wall of racism erected by the liberal immigration and refugee policies. In the government and the people of Canada to keep Senate in 1943, she had observed that refugees out the Jews of Europe.65 Wilson wrote dispair- who entered Canada in wartime had disproved ingly to a friend: "it has been unexpectedly diffi• the old arguments about immigrants taking jobs cult to arouse public sympathy into meaningful from Canadians, for many had set up new busi- action."66 nessess and were making valuable economic contributions to the country. The Koerners from No one was worse off than Jewish children Austria, for instance, had established in British and the CNR pledged its strongest support on Columbia the second largest plywood factory in their behalf. Drawing a link between mother• the world. Another Jew, Louis Fischel, initiated hood and child rescue work, Wilson felt certain a glove-making industry in Prescott County, that homes could be found for orphaned and and the Bata shoe family had created numerous separated children because Canadian mothers jobs in Ontario. She also viewed these cases as would rally to the cause. She campaigned vigor• victories against the new Communist "men- ously to convince women to take advantage of ance," and she warned Canadians that the only this opportunity to prove their superior capacity way to repudiate Soviet charges about racial and for humane and caring work.67 But the antici• economic discrimination under capitalism was pated response was not forthcoming. While the to provide concrete evidence of the opportunities Committee scored a small victory in the summer and freedoms that flourish in a bourgeois of 1939 by forcing the government to admit 100 democracy.72 "bonafide" Jewish orphans now residing tem• porarily in Britain, the outbreak of war dis• At the encouragement of senator Arthur rupted the project. As public support grew for Roebuck, a progressive and long-time supporter the British mothers and children threatened with of immigration, Wilson headed the Senate evacuation during the war, interest in Jewish Standing Committee on Immigration and children waned, and various women's commit• Labour from 1946 to 1948. With the support of tees, led by prominent social worker Charlotte various ethnic groups, many of whose compa• Whitton, began to organize for a British evacua• triots included refugees and displaced persons tion movement to Canada. Although Whitton currently languishing in camps on the continent was a key member of the CNCR she had never and in Britain, the Committee enthusiastically been trusted by the Canadian Jewish Commun• endorsed an expansionist and non-discriminatory ity and even Wilson, who naturally approved of post-war immigration policy.73 To Wilson, this the British children scheme, now suspected recommendation was a logical extension of her Whitton of collaborating with Director of wartime refugee work. Now, however, she found Immigration F.C. Blair to destroy the Jewish herself in the company of such unlikely allies as project.68 Another attempt to rescue Jewish refu• Liberal cabinet ministers and big business. gees was aimed at Jewish women and children Indeed, the recommendations of the Senate interned under the pro-Nazi Vichy government committee reflected a dramatic shift among bus• of France. It also failed. No more schemes were iness and political interests toward large-scale proposed,69 although after the war Wilson con• immigration. Led by the Minister of Reconstruc- tion, the powerful CD. Howe, Canadian immi• causes she supported. She set out on countless gration officials became interested in recruiting speaking tours during which she addressed not young, hard-working labourers from Europe to only women's clubs but political, religious and replenish the country's labour supply, particu• reform organizations as well as such obviously larly in the extractive industries. While the dis• male dominated groups as veteran's associations placed persons camps emerged as a major source and monarchist leagues. In addition, numerous of labour, immigration officials continued to women's columns and magazine articles chro• exclude Jews, although it now did so covertly by nicled her political career. advising its overseas inspection teams to disap• prove Jewish applicants.74 Whether Wilson was Wilson championed her bourgeois model of aware of this or not is uncertain, but she did the ideal woman as an efficient household man• support the Department of Labour's official ager and active club woman devoted to public campaign to recruit able-bodied refugees and affairs. In countless speeches across the country displaced persons. By 1951 she had also turned she advised women to embrace the new labour- her attention to the provision of adequate lan• saving devices so that it would free them to guage and work skills programmes for new pursue careers and public work. She also immigrants. That this provided the country lamented the arresting impact of femininity on with an opportunity to mold "new Canadians" women, especially those embarking on profes• out of old foreigners did not go unnoticed by sional careers. By constantly reaffirming the trait Wilson. Indeed, she even likened the task to the of "womanly patience," she noted in a 1939 civilizing efforts of Christian missionaries speech to Domestic Science graduates, "many overseas.75 women have remained unconcerned with achieving independence, even failing to design II the very tools which have eased the burden of their domestic duties." Yet, Wilson did not For over three decades the harsh political reali• totally reject the prevailing stereotypes about ties of the day overshadowed the potency of women. In a 1930 speech to the Toronto women' issues in Canadian politics. Even Wil• Women's Teachers' Association, Wilson opposed son's loyalties were divided between war related the total feminization of teaching because she calamities that required immediate attention felt that children's constant exposure to and legislative reforms on behalf of women's women's peculiarly feminine qualities, espe• legal and economic rights, although she would cially "too much sentimentality," might have have argued that both sets of issues required adverse effects on the students, particularly the feminist and humanist solutions. Whatever males. Later, during the Cold War politics of the might be said of Wilson's cautious brand of fem• post-war period, she maintained that education inism and of the questionable influence of the should first and foremost promote patriotism.77 Senate on Parliament and public opinion, the Senate record reveals her consistent support for Two issues of central importance to Wilson measures designed to improve the economic concerned women's access to career opportuni• independence and career opportunities of Cana• ties and liberal divorce laws. Her philosophical dian women, and to up-grade the health and j ustification was premised on Liberal precepts; welfare benefits available to poor and working women, too, had a right to equality of opportun• women. Moreover, unlike many senators, who ity, property and happiness. Early in her career, tend to recede into public oblivion soon after Wilson even denounced the League of Nations their appointment, Wilson deliberately public• for failing to comply with Article Seven of the ized her position and openly campaigned for the Covenant under which all posts were open to men and women. Women were virtually colleagues, who, predictably, equated the "loos• excluded from all but the junior and non- ening up" of rigid divorce laws with the break political posts, and no attempt had been made to down of traditional Christian values and the replace retired women with new female moral decay of Canadian society.81 appointments. In what amounted to a proposal in favour of affirmative action, Wilson insisted In their presentations, male senators por• that the League actively recruit qualified women trayed women seeking divorce as scheming vil- to head important committees.78 Several decades lainesses taking undue advantage of lax legal later, she recounted with obvious pride her own codes in order to gratify their carnal desires and experience as Canada's first woman delegate to to escape the duties of wifery and motherhood. the United Nations Fourth General Assembly in In response, Wilson dismissed simplistic corre• 1949 during which she worked on the Commit• lations between divorce and social decay and tee devoted to the Status of Women and the insisted that married people, herself included, International Save the Children Fund (UNI- had no right to impose marriage as the ideal CEF).79 Similarly, she supported the decision of arrangement since it ignored the sexual inequal• the 1947 Liberal party convention to endorse the ity upon which the institution was premised and appointment of a woman to the Civil Service the plain fact that many women suffered misera• Commission and to the Unemployment Com• bly unhappy marriages. No woman, she added, mission. She felt that the appointments could should be forced to submit to cruel and unfair not be more appropriate given the large treatment at the hands of her husband. Com• numbers of women employed in the Civil Ser• menting on the harsh experiences of a young vice and dependent on welfare benefits. Later woman friend abandoned by her husband for that year, she also applauded the government's over eight years, Wilson dismissed any sexist plan for a Women's Bureau in the Department of notions that might lay the blame on the wom• Labour to be headed by a woman. Admittedly an's undesirable character: "[a] young woman small gestures, Wilson nonetheless acknowl• had a right to lead a happy life...it was not her edged these administrative changes as signifi• fault that her husband ran away."82 cant advances in women's struggles to be consi• dered as competent professionals and she hoped By 1955 Wilson's tone became sharper as she that such government trends would expand into argued that marriage laws reflected the fact that the private sector.80 "for centuries women have been treated as a piece of men's property." "A woman today," she For over three decades Wilson consistently added, "demands a goodness of her own making and courageously supported the liberalization of upon a new set of values, for she realizes that divorce laws on the grounds that women had a since the early days of patriarchal society, moral• right to a respectable and non-stigmatizing way ity laws have been framed for her subjugation."83 out of a miserable, even life-threatening, mar• These were strong words and they indicated Wil• riage. During the thirties, when much of the son's increasing frustration with the chauvinist Senate debates revolved around the issue of ethos of the 1950s and the moralizing male poli• expanding legitimate grounds for divorce, Wil• ticians. Although she believed that many son advocated adding men's desertion and the divorced women might find happiness in a threat of violence as valid grounds for divorce, second marriage, Wilson acknowledged the and she denounced the suggestion that desertion growing number of single mothers forced to exceed seven years before an abandoned wife enter the labour force without any marketable could file for divorce. She stood firm in her con• skills and without daycare facilities for their demnation of the views expressed by her male children. Consequently, she also advocated ali- raony and child custody payments.84 To Wil• time to peacetime economy would affect the sta• son's credit, for she certainly considered herself a tus and earning power of Canadian women, happily married woman, she understood that especially those who had been employed in war the central issue to divorce was a feminist one, industries and who were now expected to turn that women had the right to control their own over their jobs, and their new found independ• lives and those of their children. For the same ence, to returning veterans. She was particularly reasons she opposed the Naturalization Act that concerned with establishing a post-war national made it obligatory for a Canadian woman who health organization in co-operation with all the married a foreign national to accept her hus• provincial governments, whose functions would band's nationality. Such legislation was as be to subsidize mothers, especially poor and harmful to women, she observed in 1959, as the working single mothers, and to develop infant outmoded property laws of Quebec where, only health care as a way of combatting infant mor• forty years earlier, married women had been tality, which she understood to be a class as well "classed with inmates of mental institutions, as a gender issue. She also insisted that health minors and Indians, and not permitted to vote services be extended to the sick and elderly.88 even in municipal affairs." At that time, her These demands were costly. They were also pro• husband, a resident of Ontario, had received the gressive, humane and courageous, words that voting papers for property she owned in her might well describe Senator Cairine Wilson. hometown Montreal.85

Ill Wilson's feminism stopped sort of a critique of industrial capitalism and its exploitation of The class and gender limitations of Wilson's wage earning women. Her genuine concern for liberal feminism should not detract from the the daily struggles of poor and working class importance of her lengthy career as the first women, as well as rural women, was tainted by woman senator in Canada and as respected the paternalism common to her class. However, humanitarian politician and active feminist. she did acknowledge that "women in industry Faced with the hostility of colleagues, the diffi• were not working for a few luxuries, but were cult political realities of the day, and the general forced outside the home in order to help support ambivalence of Canadians towards women's their husbands and children."86 Prescribing to rights, it is not surprising that Wilson did not stereotypical images of the urban lower orders as make impressive political gains for feminism. susceptible to idleness and potentially destruc• Despite these obstacles, she effectively used her tive behaviour, Wilson believed that working influence within the Liberal party and govern• class children often came from broken or ment to pursue progressive reforms on behalf of unhappy homes. It was therefore up to the state the disadvantaged, including women, and to and members of the respectable stratum to help promote peace. Her efforts did not go unnoticed. workers "maintain their morals [and] keep their In 1960, a woman friend and colleague wrote to familes together." But she also encouraged Wilson to express her admiration for the senator. middle-income and wealthy housewives, as well "You have always been," wrote Margaret as professional women, to support government Wherry, "a person of such great integrity... To so welfare and social service schemes and to pres• many refugees you have become a friend.... To us sure their MPs into endorsing improved unem• who worked with you on various Committees ployment and health services.87 you were always a great source of sound and considered judgement. ...thanks for the trail you As the Second World War came to an end, have blazed for Canadian women."89 At the time Wilson wondered how the transition from a war• of her death in March 1962, CJC vice-president Saul Hayes wrote to Wilson's daughter: "The 3. Cited in Ross, "Senator" Canadian Jewish Community has cause to 4. Wilson was so intimidated by the hostile reception she recieved that she remained silent during the opening session. Senate mourn the death of your esteemed mother whose Debates [hereafter SD], 20 February 1930. See also W. Kunz, actions on fundamental freedoms and ...rights The Modern (Ottawa 1965 ) 54-56. 5. SD, 21 February 1930. has [sic] illuminated the pages of recent Cana• 6. On Canada see: Carol Bacchi,Liberation Deferred: The Ideas dian history. It was one of the rich experiences of oftheEnglish Canadian Suffragists 1877-1918(Toronto 1938); my life that I knew senator Wilson so well and Linda Kealey ed., A Not Unreasonable Claim: Women and Reform in Canada 1880s-1920s (Toronto 1979); Terrence Mor• looked upon her...as a great resource in the great rison, "Their Proper Sphere" Feminism, the Family and humanitarian work which we were called to Child Centred Social Reform in Ontario, 1875-19," Ontario History (March and June 1976); Veronica Strong-Boag, The do...Her life work should be the best tribute to Parliament of Women: The National Council of Women of the memory of a grand and great woman."90 Canada 1893-1929 and her "Canadian Feminism in the 1920s: The case of Nellie McClung," Journal of Canadian Studies 12:4 (Summer 1977), 58-68. Humanitarianism was the essence of Wilson's On U.S.A. see: Jill Conway, "Women Reformers and Amer• feminism and it grew out of her intense com• ican Culture, 1870-1930," Journal of Social History 5:2 (Win• ter 1972-73; Carl Degler, At Odds: Women and Family in mitment to an evangelical Christian tradition America from the Revolution to the Present (New York 1980); and to an English liberal tradition that stressed Ellen duBois, "The Radicalism of the Women Suffrage Movement: Notes Toward the Reconstruction of Nineteenth- self-sacrifice and godly work in politics. It also Century Feminism," Feminist Studies (Fall 1975) and her reflected her belief that well-educated and Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent enlightened middle class women could provide a Women's Movement in America, 1848-1869 (Ithaca 1978). 7. Recent studi.s ..ivc dealt with a variety of women involved in fundamental contribution to the women's social and political action. See, for example: Gwynneth Buck, movement by entering the political sphere and "One Woman's Campaign For a New Social Order," MA Major Research Paper, York University, 1981; Katherine promoting reform, particularly social reforms McCuaig, "From Social Relief to Social Service: The Chang• aimed at addressing the disadvantaged position ing Role of Volunteers: The Anti-Tuberculosis Campaign, of society's victims. Significantly, she under• 1900-30," CHR 61:4 (December 1980)480-501; Joan Sangster, " "Militant Mothering": Women in Radical Politics and stood that women deserved special treatment in Labour in Ontario and Western Canada," PhD Thesis, this regard and in the Senate she gave women's McMaster University 1984; Veronica Strong-Boag, "Interna• tionalism and Peace: The Efforts of Canadian Women, 1919- issues her undivided attention. The length of her 1939, "Conference on Women and Education For Peace and career and the admiration she had earned by the Non-Violence," OISE, Toronto, 29 September 1984; John end of it contradicts the notion that, after the Manly, "Women and the Left in the 1930s: The case of the Toronto CCF Women's Joint Committee," Atlantis 5:2 suffrage victory, women either fell into the cate• 100-19. gory of passive feminity or, as the reporter of our 8. SD 13 March 1962. opening story put it, an "unlovely type" of brash 9. John L. Scott, "Our New Woman Senator," Maclean's, 1 April 1930, p. 16. feminism. Wilson presented the Canadian pub• 10. PAC Cairine Wilson Papers (hereafter WP), vol 5, Speech to lic with a model of a respectable feminist. the Toronto Women's Teacher Association, 22 November 1930. Although that image would often be unfairly 11. WP vol 2, file 31; vol 5, Speech to the League for Women's used against more radical women, it also played Rights, Montreal, 28 February 1931. an important role in making feminism and the 12. Scott, "Woman Senator," 16-17; Jean Graham, "Among Those Present," Saturday Night, 18 June 1932; M.H. Halton, presence of women in public positions accepta• "Canada's First Woman Senator," Canadian Home Journal, ble to Canadian men and women. July 1931 p. 139 in WP vol 6, Scrapbooks; Charles Clay Papers, vol 3, Notes on Wilson. 13. Scott, "Woman Senator," pl7. In addition to his very success• NOTES ful Mackay Brothers' dry goods wholesale business, Mackay also held influential positions on the Montreal Board of 1. On the person's case see: Catherine Cleverdon, The Woman Trade, Montreal Harbour Board, Bank of Montreal and the Suffrage Movement in Canada (Toronto 1947) 141-155; Elea• Montreal General Hospital. nor Hartman, "Five Person from Alberta," in Mary Quayle 14. WP vol 8, Scrapbooks, 24 February 1930. Innis ed., The Clear Spirit (Toronto 1966) 240-259. 15. WP vol 6, Speech Notes to St. Stephen's Presbyterian Church, 2. Evening Journal 12 Febrary 1930; Ottawa Citizen 12 and 15 14 January 1955. February 1930; Also cited in Mary Lowry Ross, "Senator Cai• 16. WP vol 6, Trans-Canada Broadcast: World Day of Prayer, 8 rine Wilson," Saturday Night 11 June 1955; The Gazette February 1951. (Montreal) 22 February 1980. 17. Halton, "First Woman Senator," pl39. 49. WP vol 5, Speech to the Women's Canadian Club, Quebec 18. "Home and Love Life's Boons," Canadian Home Journal City, 22 January 1931. May 1931 in WP vol 8, Scrapbooks. 50. See, for example, WP vol 5, Speech to the Halycon Club, 19. St. Croix Courier, 4 January 1934 in WP vol 8, Scrapbooks. Ottawa, 16 May 1931; SD 17 December 1945. 20. Scott, "Woman Senator," p.16; Halton, "First Woman Sena• 51. Glad Tidings March, 1957 p.2 Wilson also praised CCF MP tor," p.139. Agnes MacPhail for supporting reform measures in Parlia• 21. See WP vol 7 and 8, Scrapbooks. They are filled with clippings ment and for initiating the Archibault Commission on Penal documenting Laurier's political career. On King, see Ottawa Reform. Citizen 21 March, 1932. 52. WP vol 5, Speech to the Empire Club, 20 November 1930. 22. WP vol 8, Scrapbooks, 24 February 1930; On Gladstone see 53. For details, see Irving Abella and Harold Troper, " 'The line Phillip Magnus, Gladstone: A Biography (London 1930); See must be drawn somewhere': Canada and Jewish Refugees, also J.T. Saywell's introduction to The Canadian Journal of 1933-39," CHR, 15:2 (1979), 179-209 and their None is Too Lady Aberdeen, 1893-1898 (Toronto 1960). Many Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933-1948 (Toronto 23. WP vol 6, Speech on Christian Youth Week, 24 January 1957. 1983); Strong-Boag, "Internationalism and Peace." 24. WP vol 6, CFRA Broadcast; Canadian Girls in Training and 54. PAC, Canadian National Committee on Refugees [hereafter Truxis Trail Rangers, 11 February 1951. CNCR] vol 6, file 24, Executive Minutes, First General Meet• 25. Ibid. ing, 6 and 7 December 1938; WP vol 6 Text of Speech, "An 26. WP vol 6, Trans-Canada Broadcast: World Day of Prayer, 8 Appeal on Behalf of Refugees," 29 December 1938. February 1951. 55. See CNCR correspondence between executive secretary Con• 27. Ibid. stance Hayward and local branches located in CNCR Papers; 28. Wilson, "Home and Love." CNCR, vol 4, file 31, Hayward to Edmund Walker, 6 June 29. Scott, "Woman Senator," p.16; Wilson, "Home and Love." 1941; vol 6, file 10, Hayward to G.W. Simpson, 22 January 30. See, for example, Saskatchewan Liberal 8 June 1933 in WPvol 1944. 8, Scrapbooks; SD 18 May 1943, 13 March 1947, 18 February 56. Montreal Daily Star, 15 Decmeber 1932. 1949, 17 March 1955, 4 April 1960. 57. Ottawa Citizen, 13 March 1933. 31. WP vol 5, Speech to the League for Women's Rights, Mont• 58. SD 12 March 1931, 16 January 1932. real, 28 February 1931. 59. SD 16 May 1934. 32. Evelyn Tufts, "One of the Most Useful Members of Parlia• 60. Ibid. ment," in WP vol 8, Scrapbooks. 61. Abella and Troper, "The line," p. 198 and None is Too Many, 33. See, for example, WP vol 8, The Twentieth-century Associa• 44-46; Gerald E. Dirks, Canada's Refugee Policy: Indifference tion Luncheon, 5 June 1933. of Opportunitism? (Montreal 1978). 34. See, for example, PAC, Catherine Cleverdon Papers, National 62. Ibid. Federation of Liberal Women, Constitution, 14 and 15 63. CNCR Executive Minutes, First General Meeting, 6 and 7 November 1945. December 1938. 35. Ottawa Citizen, 21 March 1932. 64. Ibid. 36. Reginald Whitaker, The Government Party: Organizing and 65. For details see Abella and Troper, None is Too Many. Financing the , 1930-58 (Toronto 66. Cited in Dirks, Refugee Policy p.71; On Wilson's efforts see 1977). CNCR vol 6, and WP, (file 6, 2, 4). 37. See, for example, Ottawa Citizen, 13 March 1933; WP vol 1, 67. CNCR vol 6, file 24. See also correspondence between Hay• Brief Message to the Mothers of Georgian Bay, Radio Station ward and Wilson. CFOS, Owen Sound, 12 May 1950. 68. Abella and Troper, None is Too Many, 101-102. 38. WP vol 6, Trans-Canada Broadcast: World Day of Prayer, 8 69. Ibid., 102-125. February 1951. 70. WP vol 1, file 3, 1 November 1954; vol 1, file 5, Mrs.R.T. 39. Quoted in Ottawa Citizen (nd) in WP vol 6, Scrapbooks. Tanner to Wilson, 6 July and 22 December 1954 and C.E.S. 40. WP vol 5, Speech to the League for Women's Rights, Mont• Smith to Wilson, 12 May 1954; vol 1, file 5, Canada Save the real, 28 February 1931. Children Fund; SD 15 August 1946 653-654. 41. PAC, Clay Papers, League of Nations Society, National Exec• 71. Gynneth Evans, Women in Federal Politics; a Biobiblio- utive Meeting, 22 January 1943; Ottawa Citizen, 13 March graphy (Ottawa 1975). 1933; WP vol 6, Speech to Peace Action Week Dinner, Ottawa, 72. SD 4 April 1960. See also SD December 14, 1953, 20 February 9 November 1937; Speech to the Women's Organizations, 1951, 13 May 1947. League of Nations Society, Toronto Branch, 26 June 1935. 73. Senate Standing Committee on Immigration and Labour 42. The Globe, 2 March 1933; Saskatchewan Liberal, 8 June 1933; 1948; SD 4 April 1960, 28 March 1946, 25 June 1948. WP vol 5, Speech to the Empire Club, 20 November 1930; SD 74. Abella and Troper, None is Too Many, 238-279; SD 5 March 13 March 1956. 1943, 3 February 1944. See also D.C. Corbett, Canada's Immi• 43. WP vol 5, Speech to the Empire Club, 20 November 1930. gration Policy (Toronto 1976) and Alan C. Green, Immigra• 44. Ibid. tion and the Post-War Economy (Toronto 1976); R. Bothwel 45. Ibid. and W. Kilbourn, CD. Howe a biography (Toronto 1979). 46. See, for example, Ibid.; Speech to the Halcyon Club, Ottawa, 75. Glad Tidings, 19 January 1951. 16 May 1931; Wilson, "The Present Status of Women," in The 76. WP vol 5, Speech to the Domestic Science Graduates, Macdo- Canadian Bar Review, No.1014 Toronto, April 1932,217-221; nald College, Quebec, 8 June 1932; Wilson, "Woman's WP vol 5, Speech to Eaton's Girls Club, Toronto, 10 April Opportunities." 1931. 77. WP vol 5, Speech to the Toronto Women's Teacher Associa• 47. Wilson, "Women's Opportunities," (nd) in WP vol 6, tion, 22 November 1930; Speech to the Twentieth-Century Scrapbooks. Liberal Club of Ottawa, 27 October 1932; Address to the Kiwa- 48. Ibid.; Speech to the Empire Club, 20 November 1930. nis Club, 6 February 1951. 78. WP vol 2, file 13, Speech Noted (nd). 86. Quoted in Evening News, New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, 3 79. SD 14 December 1953; Dirks, Refugee Policy, p.71. August 1933 in [VP vol 8, Scrapbooks. 80. SD 14 December 1953, 3 February 1944. 87. Ibid.; SD 3 February 1944, 17 December 1945. 81. SD 15 March 1938; Wilson, "Present Status of Women," 88. SD 5 March 1943; WP vol 5, Address to the Kiwanis Club, 6 217-221. February 1951. 82. Sd 15 March 1938. 89. WP vol 3, file 27, M. Wherry to Wilson, June 1960; Another 83. SD 17 March 1955. woman, Theresa E. Thompson, wrote a poem entitled 84. SD 17 July 1959. "Honourable Lady (Cairine Wilson)," located in vol 3, file 27. 85. Ibid. 90. WP vol 13, file 2, Saul Hayes to Miss Wilson, 22 March 1962. HANGING GREEN APRON, 1983-84