Things in History You Should Know: Agnes Macphail

I wrote this for the Meliorist almost two years ago now, when I was younger, not quite as good a writer, and even more foolish than I am now.


Agnes Macphail is the hero for the rabblerousing feminist inside of me. I would say that I want to be just like her when I grow up, but technically, I have grown up already and will have to settle with being my own person.

Macphail was, for those of you who are unaware, Canada’s very first female Member of Parliament. Elected in 1921 (a mere three years after suffrage was granted for every woman of the appropriate age on a federal level), she proceeded to scandalize the country for her single ways, her unfashionable dresses and her bloody-minded persistence in sticking with her principles. Macphail’s party was the United Farmers of Ontario, but no one has yet managed to find a solid connection between her and the little green men. It does identify her as an Ontarian, but we shall be kind and not hold that against her.

You might guess that, given the time and the place, many of her fellow MPs did not take kindly to Macphail’s kind in their parts. To illustrate this, here is a quotation found from Bastards and Boneheads, by Will Ferguson. (This is a book well worth reading, incidentally, and my response to anyone who claims that Canadian history is somehow boring.)

Said a fellow (male) MP, “There has always existed and there always will exist in women, an inborn weakness, a marked inferiority. I am not saying this with the idea of depreciating woman, because we have all had mothers… Woman is looked upon – and with reason – as the angel of the home, as a gentler being than men.” How he figured he would manage not to depreciate women while claiming their inferiority is one of those mysteries for the ages.

Macphail responded by saying, “I do not want to be the angel of any home; I want for myself what I want for other women – absolute equality. After that is secured, then men and women can take turns at being angels.”

She spent the years 1921 to 1940 as an MP, during which time she ruthlessly pursued what passed for a radically leftist agenda back then. This included old age pensions and penal reform (don’t snicker; you’re not five). She was also a fan of student bursaries and worker’s rights, later becoming responsible for the first equal pay legislation in Ontario, and was a huge fan of disarmament and pacifism. The only time Macphail went against that ideal was in 1939, when she voted for Canada’s declaration of war, as it had become abundantly clear by that point that Germany wasn’t going to stop invading the rest of Europe. Even if asked politely. I’m sure people tried that.

Things she did not like included: the death penalty, imperialism, people not letting her go into the Kingston Penitentiary to see what it was actually like in there.

After her pacifism ousted her in the subsequent election, Macphail spent three years lying low before becoming an MPP (Member of Provincial Parliament) in darkest Ontario. Her party during this time was the CCF (Co-operative Commonwealth Federation), precursor to the NDP of this modern age. She was ousted again in 1945, made a comeback in 1948, and there she remained, happily ensconced in provincial politics before being defeated one last time in 1951.

Agnes Macphail died in 1953 and is likely still quipping from beyond the grave. I shall leave you with a particularly good quotation of hers (she had many), important to remember in these times and every other time: “Patriotism is not dying for one’s country, it is living for one’s country. And for humanity. Perhaps that is not as romantic, but it is better.”

Disclaimer: It is said that on cold, dark Halloween nights that if you say ‘conservatism’ three times in front of a mirror, the ghost of Agnes Macphail will materialize and throw you through a brick wall. Even if there is no brick wall in the vicinity!