Browse "Senators"

Arthur Julien Tremblay, PC, OC, OQ, professor, educational reformer, senior public servant, senator, author (born 18 June 1917 in St-Bruno, QC; died 27 October 1996).

Cairine Reay Wilson (née Mackay), senator, diplomat, philanthropist (born 4 February 1885 in Montreal, QC; died 3 March 1962 in Ottawa, ON). In 1930, the year after the success of the Persons Case, Wilson was the first woman appointed to the Senate of Canada. She helped found and run political organizations that encouraged women and youth to get involved in politics. From the 1930s onwards, Wilson advocated for the admission of European refugees to Canada.

Calvin Woodrow Ruck, CM, senator, social worker, human rights activist, author (born 4 September 1925 in Sydney, NS; died 19 October 2004 in Ottawa, ON). Ruck took leading roles in the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, the NS Association of Social Workers, and the Black Cultural Society of Nova Scotia. He was the third Black Canadian appointed to the Senate.

Charlie Watt, Inuk leader (born 29 June 1944 in Fort Chimo [now Kuujjuaq], Québec). Watt founded the Northern Québec Inuit Association in 1972 and was a negotiator for the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement (JBNQA), signed in 1975. He served in the Canadian Senate from 1984 to 2018. Since January 2018, he has served as president of Makivic Corporation in Nunavik, the Inuit homeland in northern Quebec.

Claude Castonguay, businessman, senator (b at Québec City 8 May 1929). Educated at Laval U (1948-50) and U of Manitoba (1950-51), Castonguay taught at Laval 1950-57 while working as an actuary at several Québec insurance companies. In 1962 he formed his own consulting firm.

Michel Cogger fell to earth last week. It has been a long, agonizing descent. The portly, peppery Tory senator and lawyer once helped run federal election campaigns, had the ear of prime minister Brian Mulroney, and the trust of legal clients like the shadowy Austrian businessman Walter Wolf.

Donald H. Oliver, QC, senator 1990–2013, lawyer, businessman (born 16 November 1938 in Wolfville, NS). Donald Oliver was the second Black Canadian and the first Black Canadian man appointed to the Senate of Canada, on 7 September 1990.

After his father died, Forsey's mother moved with him to Canada (Newfoundland had not yet joined Confederation). Forsey was raised in Ottawa in the home of his Quebec-born maternal grandfather, William Cochrane Bowles, a high official in the House of Commons.

Inside the high-flying life of Sen. Pamela Wallin—and how it all came crashing down in a frenzy of backstabbing and bitterness. In Maclean’s second major profile of a senator caught in scandal, Anne Kingston reports.

Florence Bayard Bird (née Rhein, pseudonym Anne Francis), CC, senator, journalist, broadcaster and author (born 15 January 1908 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; died 18 July 1998 in Ottawa, Ontario). Chair of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada from 1967 to 1970, Florence Bird made her name as a broadcast journalist for CBC/Radio-Canada, reporting news and producing documentaries on women’s working conditions and on conditions for women in Canada’s prisons.

George Isaac Smith, lawyer, politician, premier of NS (b at Stewiacke, NS 6 Apr 1909; d at Truro, NS 19 Dec 1982). He began his career as a lawyer and served with the army in WWII. He then became politically involved, helping to

Gerald Grattan McGeer, "Gerry," lawyer, politician, mayor of Vancouver 1935-36, 1947 (b at Winnipeg 6 Jan 1888; d at Vancouver 11 Aug 1947). He first distinguished himself as counsel for BC on freight-rate hearings in the 1920s which brought enduring financial benefits to BC.

Gérald-A. Beaudoin, professor of law, lawyer, senator (b at Montréal 15 Apr 1929). A leading expert on the Canadian CONSTITUTION and human rights, Beaudoin was educated at the Universities of Montréal, Ottawa and Toronto and did graduate work at several European universities.

Louis-Roch-Hector Fabre, journalist, newspaper publisher, senator and diplomat (born 9 August 1834 in Montreal, Lower Canada; died 2 September 1910 in Paris, France). Hector Fabre’s appointment to serve as the Agent General of Quebec in Paris in winter 1882 marked one of the first milestones in the history of Quebec representation abroad. Fabre, who also represented the government of Canada starting in July 1882, helped to establish diplomatic and economic relations with France and other European countries and also marked the beginning of permanent Canadian representation abroad.

Hewitt Bostock, newspaperman, MP, Senator (b at Walton Heath, Surrey, Eng 31 May 1864; d at Monte Creek, BC 28 Apr 1930). Graduating from Trinity College, Cambridge, he was called to the bar in 1888, but in 1893 left for Canada, becoming a rancher and fruit farmer at Monte Creek, British Columbia.

Jacques Hébert, journalist, travel writer, publisher, Senator (born 21 June 1923 in Montreal, QC; died 6 December 2007 in Montreal). Jacques Hébert was a crusading Quebec journalist and a trailblazing book publisher before and during the Quiet Revolution. He founded Canada World Youth, an exchange program dedicated to world peace, and co-founded Katimavik, a youth program offering volunteer positions across the country. As a member of the Senate, Hébert held a 21-day fast to protest the government’s cancellation of funding for Katimavik. His travels took him to over 130 countries; notably, he visited the People’s Republic of China in 1960 with longtime friend Pierre Trudeau. Hébert was also a noted critic of Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis and a federalist who scorned Quebec nationalism. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1978.

James Basil Gladstone, Kainai (Blood) interpreter, farmer, rancher, Indigenous rights advocate, senator (born 21 May 1887 at Mountain Mill, North-West Territories; died 4 September 1971 at Fernie, BC) was of mixed Scottish-Cree-French Canadian ancestry. Gladstone devoted most of his life to the betterment of Indigenous peoples in Canada and was appointed the country’s first senator with Indian Status.

Critical of the rise of separatism in Québec in the early 1960s, Marchand was persuaded by PM Lester Pearson to be a member of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism and to join the federal Liberal Party in 1965.

Jean-Charles Chapais, senator, politician, businessman (born 2 December 1811 in Rivière-Ouelle, Lower Canada; died 17 July 1885 in Ottawa, ON).

Jean-Léon Côté, surveyor, legislator (b at Les Éboulements, Qué 26 May 1867; d there 24 Sept 1924). After studies at Montmagny and Ottawa, Côté became a land surveyor with the Department of the Interior in 1890; he settled in Edmonton in 1903.