Canada 150
Then and Now
Carrie Best
Carrie Best was born in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia in 1903. In 1943, she confronted
the racial segregation in the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow. She bought tickets for the downstairs ‘white’ seating of the theatre and was arrested for it. She fought the charges but was unsuccessful. This event motivated Carrie to found The Clarion in 1946. This was the first newspaper black-owned and published in Nova Scotia. The Clarion became important as a platform to expose racism and advocate for Black rights; it was dedicated to telling the stories of Black Nova Scotians. In her first edition of The Clarion, Carrie told the story of Viola Desmond who also challenged segregation at the Roseland Theatre. Viola Desmond’s case became a milestone human rights case in Canada.
In 1952, Carrie Best began her own radio show called The Quiet Corner. It aired for 12 years. Then, from 1968 to 1975, she wrote as a columnist for The Pictou Advocate. In 1977, she wrote and published her autobiography. She was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1974 and was promoted to Officer in 1979. Posthumously, in 2002, she was awarded the Order of Nova Scotia.
Black Canadian journalist and social activist
Unknown Canadian Heroines
Former Mayor of Mississauga
Born in Port Daniel, Quebec, Hazel McCallion is a respected and admired
businesswoman and politician. Most notably, she served as Mayor of Mississauga for 36 years (from 1978 to 2014). Since becoming a city in 1974, there have only been four mayors of Mississauga, Hazel being the third. She was a successful candidate in 12 municipal elections. She is the longest-serving major in the city’s history. Additionally, she was the oldest sitting mayor in Canada, being 93 at the time of her resignation.
In her years as mayor, Hazel McCallion kept the city debt-free and founded The
Greater Toronto Area Mayors’ Committee. Under her, Mississauga went from small townships and farmland to the sixth largest city in the country. Adding to her success story, in oversaw a major evacuation. In 1979, a Canadian Pacific train derailed, leaving the city in danger of a massive fireball and deadly chlorine gas. At the time, this event was the world’s largest peacetime evacuation. She ordered everyone to leave the city; there was not a single loss of life. Hazel McCallion dubbed this the “Mississauga Miracle” and was praised for how she handled it. She was loved by her constituents; they affectionally nicknamed her “Hurricane Hazel.” Furthermore, she is considered to be a trailblazer for women in politics; the Toronto Star once called her “The Mom Who Runs Mississauga.”
Hazel McCallion
Addie Aylestock
Addie Aylestock was born in 1909 in Elmira, Ontario – this was one of the black
farming communities in the province at the time. She moved to Toronto when the Great Depression hit Canada where she got a job as a domestic servant. She eventually became a dressmaker in Toronto.
Addie was raised in the Methodist Church and later in life desired to become a
missionary. Her intense desire motivated her to enrol in the Toronto Bible College; she graduated in 1945. By 1944, she was a deaconess with the British Methodist Episcopal Church (BME). She first served in a church in Africville. In 1951, the BME first allowed for women to be ordained. This decision was greatly influenced by the superintendent’s belief in Addie Aylestock. She was ordained, making her the first ordained minister of the BME and the first Black Canadian female minister in the country. She was also the general secretary of the BME Conference between 1958 and 1982. She went on to serve as a pastor in four different churches over more than 20 years before her death in 1998.
First Black Woman Ordained in Canada
First Openly Lesbian Senator
Nancy Ruth was born on January 6, 1942 in Toronto. Her family includes many
political people. Before becoming a Senator, she was a social activist and philanthropist. Among the many organizations she supported and was a part of, she founded the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund and the Canadian Women’s Foundation. She also created a women’s studies chair at Mount Saint Vincent University. She was a noted benefactor of hospitals and art galleries throughout the country.
She fights for women’s constitutional rights and opposed the Charlottetown Accord
in 1992. She also publicly opposes pornography. She supported tougher child pornography laws, which made her controversial among gay rights activists, who believed the legislation was ambiguous.
She was appointed to the Senate on March 24, 2005. This was done by Governor
General Adrienne Clarkson, on advise from Prime Minister Paul Martin. She was selected as a Progressive Conservative, though in 2006, she joined the Conservative caucus. She is most famously known as Canada’s first openly lesbian senator. She retired in 2017, when she reached the mandatory retirement age of 75.
Nancy Ruth
First Indigenous Canadian Female Lawyer
Born in 1936, Marion Ironquill is an Ojibwa-Cree Canadian. She was born on the
Peepeekisis First Nation Reserve in Saskatchewan. Marion Ironquill attended school at a residential school miles away from her home due to the lack of a local school. Eventually, she graduated Birtle Collegeate; after this, she felt as though she had no place in either the aboriginal world or the non-native world (source). When she was 16 years old, she enrolled at the University of Manitoba to take some pre-med courses. She studied for two years before leaving school to marry Ronald Hector Meadmore (who became famous in the Canadian Football League). For the next twenty or so years, she spent her time raising her children.
She returned to school and completed a law degree at the University of Manitoba; she graduated in 1977. Thus, she became the first Canadian indigenous female lawyer. She continued with her law career to open Winnipeg’s first all-female law firm, focusing on corporate law. She was also a founding member of the Canadian Indian Lawyers Association (now called the Indigenous Bar Association of Canada). She also helped found the Indian Business Development Group and the National Indigenous Council of Elders.
Marion Ironquill Meadmore was awarded membership in the Order of Canada in 1985. In 2010, she was given the title of “Grandmother” from the Ka Ni Kanichihk service organization; this organization hosts an annual awards ceremony to recognize women who act and serve as role models for younger generations of indigenous women. Her success continues in 2014 when the Indspire Foundation awarded her an Indspire Award laureate designation for law. In 2015, she was granted a Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Manitoba.
Marion Ironquill Meadmore
Fourteen Year Old Heroine
Known as Madeleine de Verchères, this young girl is credited with thwarting a raid
on Fort Verchères when she was only 14.
She was born in 1678 in Quebec. Madeleine’s family lived the fort. There were a
series of attacks on the settlers of New France in the late 1600s. One day in 1962, Madeleine’s parents had left the fort where they lived to gather supplies for winter while Madeleine and her siblings remained behind. Madeleine was left in charge of the fort (along with an old man and two soldiers). While her parents were gone, there was an attack. Madeleine was in the garden and not far from the fort so she went running yelling to the people that were there to prepare for an attack. Her plan involved having the people in the fort make a lot of noise to make the attackers think there were many soldiers inside. The attackers retreated. By the time reinforcements arrived, the attackers had left and stories of Madeleine’s heroics had spread.
After her father’s death, Madeleine managed Fort Verchères. She remained in
charge until she married six years later and moved. She died in 1747 at the age of 69. Her story was largely forgotten after her death but was rediscovered in the late 1800s/early 1900s. She became a symbol of French-Canadian nationalism, though the rest of Canada still does not know her story.
Marie-Madeleine Jarret
First Practicing Female Doctor in Canada
Born Emily Jennings in 1831, Emily Stowe is famously the first female doctor to
practise in Canada. She campaigned for the first medical college for women in the country. At this time, there were few opportunities to study medicine in Canada and though she did apply to the University of Toronto School of Medicine, she was not accepted due to being female. Thus, she enrolled at a school in New York and received a degree from there in 1867. She proceeded to set up a practice on Richmond Street in Toronto, though she was not, at this time, officially licenced to practice.
In addition, she was also an activist for women’s rights and a suffragist. She was an
integral part of founding the women’s suffrage movement in Canada. In 1876, the Toronto Women’s Literary Club came into existence under her. And, as if that wasn’t enough, Emily Stowe also taught in Brantford and Mount Pleasant. After giving birth to her third child, her husband became sick with tuberculosis. His illness is what motivated Emily to begin teaching grammar, as the family was in need of extra money. All of this, all of her hard work, made an impact on Canada, medicine, and women’s rights as a whole. Her daughter was the first woman to earn a medical degree in Canada.
Dr. Emily Stowe
Director of First Birth Control Clinic in Canada
Elizabeth Catherine Bagshaw was born in October of 1881 in Ontario. She enrolled
in the Women’s Medical College in 1901 and received her degree from the University of Toronto. She set up her own medical practice in Hamilton in 1906. From 1932 to 1966, Elizabeth Bagshaw was the medical director of the first birth control clinic in Canada; although this was illegal at the time, she persevered because she believed the clinic was necessary for women who deserved the right to control their own bodies. She remained practicing until 1976 when she retired, at 95 years old. At the time, she was the oldest practising physician in Canada.
Her accomplishments beyond medicine are great but unknown to many. She was
awarded Hamilton’s Citizen of the Year award in 1970 and two years later, she was made a Member of the Order of Canada. The National Film Board of Canada created a documentary film about her in 1978; it was called Doctor Woman: The Life and Times of Dr. Elizabeth Bagshaw. In 1979, she was among the first seven women to be awarded the Governor General’s Awards in Commemoration of the Persons Case.
She became a Centenarian in 1981, though she died the following year before
making it to 101 years. In 2007, twenty-five years after her death, Elizabeth Bagshaw was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. There is a school (Elizabeth Bagshaw Elementary School) named after her in Hamilton; the Elizabeth Bagshaw Women’s Clinic in Vancouver was also named after her.
Elizabeth Bagshaw
Beulah Cooper
On September 11, 2001, the world changed. While the United States was the centre
of the day’s events, Canada had its moment. In Gander, Newfoundland, Operation Yellow Ribbon was commenced as a way to divert flights from the US. The goal was to remove any potentially dangerous air traffic as fast as possible.
Beulah Cooper lived in Gander at this time. Beulah Cooper was one of the hundreds
of people in Newfoundland to help out that day. She put her life on hold to help the passengers of diverted flights. For many, this was simply providing food; for Beulah Cooper, it was more than that. She went without sleep for 28 hours and became a caregiver for many strangers. She was a comfort to many people who were scared for their own lives or for the lives of people they knew.
Now in her late 70s, Beulah Cooper continually has people contacting her to say thank you for her efforts that day in 2001. She has kept in touch with some of the people she helped, including Monica Burke of Seattle. Ten years after the day of attack, Burke still thinks about “just how unselfish” Beulah Cooper was (source). On June 29, 2011, she was awarded the Meritorious Service Award. This award recognized her efforts and contributions to the town of Gander.
9/11 Hero in Her Own Right
First Female Police Officer in Canada
She was born into slavery in Virginia in 1774. During the American Revolution,
when she was 10 years old, her family escaped and settled in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia. In 1825, Rose Fortune started a business carting luggage between ferry docks and nearby hotels. She became entrusted with protecting property and keeping order in Annapolis Royal. She acted as the town’s waterfront police officer, making her the first female officer in Canada (and some sources say North America).
In addition to being law enforcement, she was a businesswoman. Her business
became very lucrative in time and in 1841 became known as Lewis Transfer. For the next 100 years, Rose’s grandchildren carried on the business. Many descendants still work in the shipping and trucking industry. Her legacy lives on today. A scholarship was created in her name by The Association of Black Law Enforcers. As well, Daurene Lewis, her descendant, was the first Black female mayor in North America.
Rose Fortune
