The purpose of a woman's life is just the same as the
purpose of man's life—that she may make the best possible
contribution to the generation in which she is living.
—Louise McKinney
Louise McKinney was the first woman elected to government
in Canada--a choice made by both men and women. In 1917, in
the first election in which women were allowed to run for
office or given the vote, McKinney ran as a Non-Partisan
League (NPL) candidate in Alberta. She ran for the NPL
because she believed liquor and brewing companies influenced
the major political parties through their donations. She won
a seat in the election, as did Nursing Sister Roberta
MacAdams, but because she was sworn into the Alberta
Legislature before Sister MacAdams, McKinney has the
distinction of being the first.
McKinney organized 20 Woman's Christian Temperance Union
(WCTU) chapters in the West, serving as president of the
Alberta and Saskatchewan Union for 20 years. Under her
guidance, the WCTU strongly influenced the political and
social growth and development of Alberta. The WCTU stood not
merely for temperance but also for promoting a Christian
lifestyle. Many social reform movements had the support of
the WCTU, which played a major part in obtaining the
franchise for women in 1916. Social service and immigrant
work were also important areas of focus for the
organization. However, McKinney's focus was on the
temperance movement. She believed in the educational value
of prohibition campaigns and was active in promoting her
views on the negative effects of alcohol and smoking. She
had a major role in the 1915 provincial campaign to ban
alcohol, which made Alberta the second province to adopt
prohibition.
McKinney was significantly involved in politics; but
often questioned partisan practices. The power of liquor
contributions to political party funds was an issue that she
took a stand on by not belonging to either of the two major
parties. When the NPL was established in Alberta she gave it
her enthusiastic support. She was persuaded to occupy
candidacy in Claresholm during the 1917 provincial election
and to her own surprise, was successful, becoming the first
female legislator in the British Empire.
McKinney also became known very quickly as one of the
most capable debaters in the Assembly when bills were
introduced and debated. She was interested in legislation to
aid people with disabilities, and consistently pressured the
government until prohibition laws were made more effective.
Her major initiative was the improvement of the legal status
of widows and separated wives. McKinney and Henrietta Muir
Edwards drafted a bill which she introduced which was passed
to become the Dower Act, one of Alberta's most progressive
laws. A strong proponent of women's rights, McKinney urged
the adoption of social welfare measures for immigrants and
widows.
McKinney was a delegate to the final Methodist General
Conference in 1925. She attended the first General Council
of the United Church of Canada and signed the Basis of Union
as one of the Commissioners—one of only four women and the
only woman from Western Canada. Back then, the Temperance
Union's members were powerful activists who took on taboo
issues such as family violence.
Defeated in her second election in 1926, McKinney
subsequently retired from active politics. In 1929, she was
one of the five women of Alberta who carried the appeal to
the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council which finally
established the status of women as
"persons" under the
British North America Act of 1867. In recognition of that
work, McKinney was made a World Vice-President of the
Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire (IODE).
On January 23, 1930, the Calgary Women’s Canadian Club
held a victory lunch in the Crystal Ballroom of the Palliser
Hotel for the Famous 5. When it was McKinney’s turn to
speak, as noted in the Alberta, she called on women, "to
dream big and act honourably."
The women's organizations of Alberta raised a fund to
honour this nation builder by having her portrait painted by
J. Forster, of Toronto. Sittings were interrupted by her
death, but the portrait was completed from photographs and
now hangs in the Legislative Building in Edmonton.
Many paid tribute to Louise McKinney on her death in
1931. Tributes came from men and women in public life all
over Canada, and from WCTU leaders from many different
countries who dropped hundreds of white ribbons into her
coffin. Nellie McClung said of her: "Mrs. McKinney was a
great lover of people and because she loved them she could
not look with complacency on any of life's evils."
Louise McKinney died at Claresholm, the home of her
legislative seat, on 10 July 1931, aged 63. Her gravestone
reads only "Mother." |