MacInnis, Grace

• Winona Grace Woodsworth MacInnis
• Grace Woodsworth MacInnis

Winona Grace Woodsworth was born on 25 July 1905, the eldest daughter of James Shaver Woodsworth and Lucy Lillian (Staples) Woodsworth. She was raised primarily in Winnipeg and British Columbia, where her father was a Methodist minister and advocate for social reforms in immigrant communities and her mother was a teacher and homemaker. Grace was an avid student from an early age, eventually attending the University of Manitoba and studying at the Sorbonne for a year before also obtaining her teaching credentials.

In 1931 Grace left teaching to be an assistant to her father in Ottawa, where he served in the House of Commons. When the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) party was formed in 1932, Grace was a charter member and eventually became President of its British Columbia branch. That same year she also married Angus MacInnis, a colleague of James Woodsworth and himself one of the 7 CCF MP’s in Parliament, representing Vancouver-Kingsway. Grace supported his efforts until his retirement in 1957 due to ill health, while also building her own career as politician and advocate.

In 1941 Grace was elected to the BC Legislative Assembly representing Vancouver-Burrard, where she served for three years. In that time she was a passionate supporter of birth control, income for stay-at-home mothers and argued for the rights of of Japanese-Canadians during World War II. After leaving the Legislature she continued to work on behalf of the CCF, eventually touring the province and enabling the party’s transition to the New Democratic Party (NDP) in 1961. She did not hold any elected positions, however, due to her husband’s and her own ill health for many years. She did spend a considerable amount of time researching family and external archives, eventually publishing a biography of her father in 1953 entitled “J.S. Woodsworth – A Man to Remember”. Angus MacInnis died in 1964.

In 1965 Grace re-entered the political arena, becoming the first woman from British Columbia to be elected as an MP; she was the NDP representative for her husband’s former Vancouver-Kingsway riding and held the seat for 9 years. She became known as an outspoken advocate for women’s rights – including affordable childcare, job training, education, affordable housing and, most notably, supporting the right to get an abortion. Though she rarely had the support of her caucus on this issue, Grace introduced a bill to the House of Commons in 1968 to declare abortion as a medical, rather than a legal issue. Her persistence paid off when Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau eventually amended Canada’s Criminal Code in 1969 to decriminalize abortion.

Grace MacInnis retired as an MP in 1974, although she remained active within the NDP party. That same year she was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada. She passed away in British Columbia on 10 July, 1991 at the age of 85.

Updated 15 Feb 2019, JMH

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_MacInnis https://www.leg.bc.ca/wotv/pages/featured-women/grace-macinnis.aspx https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/no-8-grace-macinnis/article1116726/ https://www.pressreader.com/canada/vancouver-sun/20140111/281556583675985
Contents of The J.S. and Lucy Woodsworth family fonds