Louise McKinney

McKinney was born Louise Crummy on 22 September 1868 in Frankville, Ontario, the sixth of ten children of Richard Crummy and Esther Empey. Her father had immigrated from Ireland to settle in Upper Canada in 1842, later bringing his wife in 1857.[1] McKinney graduated from Athens High School intending to become a physician but faced difficulty entering medical school due to her gender. Instead, she attended Ottawa Normal School to become a teacher.[2] She taught for four years in Ontario before moving to North Dakota, where she taught for three more years.[3]

While teaching in North Dakota, McKinney became interested in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. In 1894 she became one of the union's local organizers, travelling around the state to preach about the dangers of alcohol.[1] While working in this capacity, she met James McKinney, whom she married in March 1896.[4] They had one son, Williard, named after Frances Williard, the founder of the WCTU.[5] She was elected as the North Dakota WCTU's District President in 1898 and represented her area at the National Convention the following year.[1] The McKinneys continued to farm in North Dakota until 1903, when they moved to the Northwest Territories (present-day Alberta) and settled near Claresholm.[3]

Within a few weeks of arriving in Alberta, McKinney had already set out to establish a local branch of the WCTU. The following year, she met with women from across the Northwest Territories to discuss forming a larger union. The Northwest Territories' WCTU was established, which was later renamed the Alberta and Saskatchewan WCTU when they became provinces in 1905. By 1912, the organization had so many members that it split into separate groups for each province.[6] McKinney served as president of the Alberta WCTU for 22 years, from 1908 to 1930. For the same period, she served as vice-president of the Dominion WCTU. In 1930, she was voted president of the Dominion WCTU and organized the 1931 World Convention in Toronto, where she was elected vice-president of the World WCTU.[5]

WCTU convention in Calgary, Alberta, in October 1911. McKinney is center in the front row.

McKinney ran for a seat in the Alberta Legislature for the electoral district of Claresholm in the 1917 general election, the first election in which women were allowed to vote.[7] She defeated Liberal incumbent William Moffat as a candidate for the Non-Partisan League.[8] In winning the election, she became the first woman elected to a legislature in the British Empire.[lower-alpha 1] Much of her term in office was focused on working towards more effective prohibition, and she gained a reputation as a capable debater. Together with Henrietta Muir Edwards, she drafted and introduced a motion which ensured widows would receive a portion of their husbands' estate.[7] After passing, it became known as the Dower Act.[9]

Several of her fellow Famous Five members, including Parlby, Murphy, and McClung, were supporters of the eugenics movement in Alberta. It is unknown whether McKinney supported mandatory sterilization of "mental defectives", but she advocated for the creation of institutions to prevent the reproduction of feeble-minded people.[10] McKinney also indirectly supported the eugenics movement by promoting stricter immigration laws.[11]

She ran for a second term in the 1921 Alberta general election as a member of the United Farmers. She was defeated by independent candidate Thomas Milnes by a margin of 46 votes.[12] Although she never ran for political office again, she remained active and was one of four women, and the only woman from Western Canada, selected to sign the Basis of Union for the United Church of Canada in 1925.[13][14]

Statue of McKinney in Calgary, Alberta

McKinney was one of the Famous Five, along with Irene Parlby, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Emily Murphy and Nellie McClung, a group of five women who fought for the right to be considered "persons" and be eligible to serve in the Senate of Canada.[15] The case is officially titled Edwards v Canada (AG) but is popularly known as the Persons Case. In 1927, the case was taken to the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled that women were not eligible to serve in the Senate. In 1929, the ruling was appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, Canada's highest court at the time.[16] The Judicial Committee overturned the Supreme Court's decision, and the first woman, Cairine Wilson, was appointed to the Senate the following year.[17]

McKinney fell ill during the WCTU World Convention in June 1931, and her sickness became worse after her return to Claresholm. She died after returning home the following month, less than two years after her victory in the Persons Case.[18] Her death came as a shock to the WCTU, and tributes came from across the country and the world.[19]

In 1939, the government of Canada recognized McKinney as a Person of National Historic Significance. A plaque commemorating this is on display at the post office in Claresholm.[20] In 1997, the Persons Case was recognized as a National Historic Event.[21] In 2000, two identical monuments were created in Calgary, Alberta, and near the Senate of Canada Building, in Ottawa, Ontario.[22] The monuments, called Women are Persons!, depict the members of the Famous Five reading the news about their victory in the Persons Case.[23] The monuments were later featured on the $50 banknote of the Canadian Journey series.[24] In October 2009, the Senate voted to name McKinney and the rest of the Famous Five Canada's first "honorary senators".[25]

• Chambers, Ernest (1921). The Canadian parliamentary guide. Ottawa: The Mortimer Co. Limited. ISBN 9781414401416.
• Forster, Merna (2004), 100 Canadian Heroines: Famous and Forgotten Faces, Dundurn Press, ISBN 9781550025149
• MacEwan, Grant (1975), And mighty women too: stories of notable western Canadian women, Western Producer Prairie Books, ISBN 9780919306653
• Sharpe, Robert (2013), The Persons Case and the Living Tree Theory of Constitutional Interpretation
• Sharpe, Robert; McMahon, Patricia (2007). The Persons Case: The Origins and Legacy of the Fight for Legal Personhood. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1-442-68498-0.
• White, Anne (2000), "Louise Crummy McKinney (1868–1931): A Window into Western Canadian Christianity", in Guenther, Bruce (ed.), Historical Papers 2000: Canadian Society of Church History, Canadian Society of Church History

• Legislative Assembly of Alberta Members Listing