New Democratic Party  in the House of Commons

AGNES MACPHAIL

EQUAL RIGHTS and equal opportunities for women have been a major goal of the democratic socialist movement in Canada. Many of the founders of the CCF had fought for the right of women to vote which was won in 1921.

Among them were Agnes Macphail who was elected as the first woman member of the House of Commons that year.

Born in Grey County, Ontario, in 1890, Macphail was a country schoolteacher involved in the agricultural co-operative movement and the United Farmers of Ontario. She entered politics to represent the farmers of her region. As a Member of Parliament, she first sat as a member of the Progressive Party, with which the UFO was then affiliated, and later as a member of the CCF.

She served in the House of Commons until defeated in 1940. In 1943 she was elected to the Ontario legislature, one of the first two women there. She lost her seat in 1945 but was again in the legislature from 1948 to 1951.

Rural issues were always primary for her, but she gave major attention to social issues such as prison reform. She was responsible for Ontario's first equal pay legislation brought in 1951.

THE STRUGGLE AGAINST RACISM

MEMBERS OF THE CCF across Canada stood in the forefront of the struggle against racism in the volatile years before and during the Second World War. Elected CCF legislators and rank and file party members spoke out against laws that prevented Native Canadians and Canadians of Asian descent from voting or holding public office. In the general election of 1936, the Liberal Party ran advertisements in Vancouver newspapers warning voters that a vote for the CCF was a vote for "the Oriental".

In the same period, the CCF stood with other progressive Canadians and labour unionists who recognized the danger in the rise of fascism in Spain, Italy and Germany. While the Conservative and Liberal parties were silent -- or quietly supportive in the case of the Spanish dictatorship -- democratic socialists spoke out against the threat of these repressive regimes. They pointed out the anti-Semitism and totalitarianism that went with them.

One of the most outspoken Canadians who called for Canada to open its doors to the victims of Nazi repression in Europe was A. A. Heaps, CCF Member of Parliament for Winnipeg North. But the Liberal government of the time harboured its own anti-Semitism and refused to listen.

When war with Japan was declared, CCF Members of Parliament were among the few courageous enough to stand up against the hysteria of the time. They opposed racist government policy that saw thousands of Canadians of Japanese descent uproots, interned and robbed of their possessions by the Canadian government. (Later New Democrats led the fight to recognize the injustice of the internment of Ukrainian Canadians during the First World War and Canadians of Italian heritage in the Second World War.)