Women Accessing Public Office in Canada in the Past Century

Asked to reflect on how I gained the public offices that I have held, I must start at the beginning. I grew up at the North Pacific Cannery on the Skeena River in Tsimshian territory just south of Prince Rupert. Today it is a National Heritage Site. The population was small, and racism and sexism were rampant, in particular against First Nations women and girls. Then there was the wrenching removal of Canadian citizens of Japanese heritage to Interior Internment Camps. I knew I was advantaged by race, but also by living in a time of major cultural and legal change. Women who had proven capable of taking over traditional male roles during the Second World War now sought greater power. It is an attitude that influenced my life.

In 1948 Canada’s Business and Professional Women’s Clubs chose Prince Rupert’s mayor Norah Arnold as Woman of the Year. Likely Canada’s second female mayor, Mrs. Arnold preceded Ottawa’s appointment of Charlotte Whitton as mayor by three years. My friends and I were intrigued and inspired by