Wilson, Cairine (1885-1962), was the first woman ever appointed to the Senate of Canada. Wilson served in the Senate from 1930 until her death in 1962.
Cairine Reay Mackay was born on Feb. 4, 1885, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Her father, Robert Mackay, was a Scottish immigrant who became a Canadian senator. He was a member of the Liberal Party. As a youth, Cairine often traveled with her father to Ottawa, Canada’s capital, and stayed with Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier, a family friend. In 1909, Cairine married Norman Wilson, who had served as a Liberal member of Parliament for Russell, Ontario. The couple had eight children.
The Wilsons moved to Ottawa in 1918. Cairine became active in such volunteer organizations as the Salvation Army, the Victorian Order of Nurses, and the Young Women’s Christian Association. She entered politics in 1921, when she became co-president of the Eastern Ontario Liberal Association. From 1922 to 1930, Wilson helped found several other Liberal organizations. Such groups included the Ottawa Women’s Liberal Club; the National Federation of Liberal Women of Canada; and the Twentieth Century Liberal Association, a youth group.
In October 1929, Canadian women became eligible to serve in the nation’s Senate (see Famous Five ). Just four months later, in February 1930, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King made Wilson a senator for Rockcliffe, Ontario. Senator Wilson worked to improve the lives of women and children. She supported divorce laws, universal health care, and women’s workplace rights. Wilson also served as president of the League of Nations Society in Canada, an organization that promoted international peace, from 1936 to 1942.
In 1938, Wilson founded the Canadian National Committee on Refugees (CNCR). The committee worked to gain entry to Canada for Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. She chaired the CNCR from 1938 to 1948. Her efforts eventually helped open Canada to European refugees after World War II (1939-1945). In 1947, Wilson became chair of the Senate’s Standing Committee on Immigration and Labour. She was the first woman to chair a Senate standing committee.
In 1949, Wilson became Canada’s first woman delegate to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. At the UN, she argued for the rights of Eastern European refugees emigrating from Communist countries. In 1950, France’s government honored Wilson’s work with child refugees by awarding her the Cross of the Knight of the Legion of Honor.
Wilson continued her efforts to help refugees until the end of her life. She died on March 3, 1962, in Ottawa.
