Cairine Wilson

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Cairine Wilson

Cairine Reay Mackay Wilson (February 4, 1885 – March 3, 1962) was Canada's first female senator.

Born Cairine Reay Mackay in Montréal she was the daughter of Jane Mackay and Robert Mackay, a Liberal Senator and personal friend of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. In 1909, she married Norman Wilson, the Liberal Member of Parliament for Russell and they moved to Rockland, Ontario to begin a family.

In 1918, the Wilsons moved to Ottawa, where Cairine performed extensive volunteer work. She helped found the Twentieth Century Liberal Association and the National Federation of Liberal Women of Canada, of which she was President from 1938 to 1948.

She was appointed the first female senator of the country at the age of 45 in February 1930 by the government of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, just four months after the Persons Case judgement was handed down by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Previously, women had not been allowed to serve in the Senate as lower courts had argued they were not full "persons" under the law.

She is known for her campaign for Canada to allow in more Jewish Refugees from Germany up to and during World War II. William Lyon Mackenzie King was hesitant about bringing so many Jews into Canada at once (he purchased all the farmland around his home to make sure Jews would not move in near him), and his Immigration Minister, Frederick Blair was not too eager to bring in Jewish immigrants either. Because of long quarrels with the Immigration Minister she was forced to settle on only getting the government to allow 100 Jewish orphans into Canada; only two ever arrived. Thus she was given the title The Queen of Lost Causes, and Canada accepted the smallest amount of Jewish refugees of any Commonwealth Nation during Hitler's regime in Germany.

In 1938, she spoke out against the Munich Agreement, an attempt to appease Hitler, as president of the League of Nations Society of Canada.

In 1949, after being asked by King's successor, Louis St. Laurent, she became Canada's first female delegate to the United Nations General Assembly. She was the chairman of the Canadian National Committee on Refugees and the first woman to chair a Senate Standing Committee (Immigration and Labour). She was given the Cross of the Knight of the Legion of Honour by France in 1950 for her work with child refugees.

Wilson again made parliamentary history in 1955 when she became the first woman Deputy Speaker. Her husband Norman, who had been in failing health for some time, died on July 14, 1956.

Cairine Wilson died suddenly on Saturday, March 3, 1962.