Thérèse Casgrain

The Honourable Thérèse Forget Casgrain CC OBE
Thérèse Forget Casgrain, c. 1942
Senator for Mille Isles, Quebec
In office October 7, 1970 – July 10, 1971
Appointed by	Pierre Trudeau
Preceded by	Gustave Monette
Succeeded by	Renaude Lapointe
Leader of the Parti social démocratique du Québec
In office 1951–1957
Preceded by	Romuald-Joseph Lamoureux
Succeeded by	Michel Chartrand
Personal details
Born	(1896-07-10)July 10, 1896 New Democratic Party (1961-1970) Independent
Spouse	Pierre-François Casgrain (1916–1950; his death)
Relations	Sir Rodolphe Forget, father
Children	Two daughters, two sons

Marie Thérèse Casgrain,

Born in Saint-Irénée-les-Bains,^[2] near Quebec City, Thérèse was raised in a wealthy family, the daughter of Blanche, Lady Forget (née MacDonald), and Sir Rodolphe Forget, a wealthy entrepreneur and Conservative Member of Parliament.^[3][4]

In 1905, at eight years old, she became a boarder at the Dames du Sacré-Coeur, at Sault-au-Récollet, near Montreal. Upon graduation, she hoped to further her studies at university, but her father opposed the idea, not seeing any utility in further education for women. In his view, Thérèse should instead learn how to manage a household, a skill that would befit a future wife of her stature.^[3]

Thérèse was engaged twice. Her first fiancé died falling out of a window while sleepwalking, when she was only seventeen years old.^[5] In 1916, aged twenty, she married Pierre-François Casgrain, a wealthy Liberal politician with whom she raised four children.^[6]

Thérèse's father, Sir Rodolphe, had represented the

In spite of these changes at the federal level, and the expansion of women's suffrage in most other provinces, women in Quebec still could not vote during provincial elections. The opposition for such an extension of the law was strong, notably from the clergy and the conservative elite.

Casgrain led the

In late 1941, Casgrain's husband was appointed to the Superior Court of Quebec. She sought the nomination of the Liberal Party to stand for election in the vacant riding of Charlevoix—Saguenay, the same riding which had been held by her father and then her husband, but the party turned her down.^[5] In the resulting federal by-election, she stood as an "Independent Liberal" candidate in the riding, but was not successful.

Following

Casgrain was a CCF candidate in a 1952 federal by-election and in the

In 1945, Casgrain was successful in ensuring that women in Quebec could receive family allowance cheques in their own name. Prior to that time, and only in Quebec, family allowance cheques were only made out to the father. She also agitated for equal treatment of married women in the Quebec justice system.[5]

In the 1960s, she became a campaigner against nuclear weapons, founding in February 1961 the Quebec wing of Voice of Women (VOW) and serving as the national president of VOW from 1962 to 1963.^[2][5] She also was a founder of the La Ligue des droits de l'homme, which in 1978 became the Ligue des droits et libertés, and the Fédération des femmes du Québec.

In 1969, Casgrain was elected president of the Consumers' Association of Canada Quebec section. Casgrain succeeded to an anglophone president, David Macfarlane, who considered that the Quebec section's position was indefensible, as it was dominated by anglophone elements and used English as its primary work language. Many members of the association hoped Casgrain would fix this problem as president.^[10]

Senator and later life

Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau appointed Casgrain to the Senate of Canada in 1970, where she sat as an independent for nine months before reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75. As senator she questioned the prime minister's policy on the use of Canadian-made napalm and defoliants in Vietnam.^[2]

In 1972, she published her autobiography, A Woman in a Man's World.

For the last decade of her life, she was committed to helping the rights of Indigenous women.^[5] She also involved herself in charity works and consumer rights.

In spite of her inherited wealth, by the end of her life she was financially dependent on her daughters.^[5]

1980 Quebec sovereignty referendum

During the 1980 Quebec sovereignty referendum, Casgrain campaigned for the "No" side.^[5] She was among the voices who criticized Lise Payette, then provincial minister for the status of women, for saying that women who didn't back a "Yes" vote would be responsible for blocking progress. Payette likened them to Yvette, a fictional schoolgirl who featured in school primers.^[11]

Death

Thérèse Casgrain died in 1981, living with one of her daughters in Montreal.

Assessment

It was during her period as a candidate with the CCF and the Parti social démocratique du Québec, that Casgrain acquired the reputation of a "pearl-necklace leftist." Always impeccably dressed and coiffed, with elegant hats, she would make speeches to workers, encouraging them to make their demands known to their employers in companies and mines - companies of which she was often a share-holder, with shares inherited from her businessman father.^[5]

Those who knew her said that she was not one to consult with others or to follow the rules, and could be exhausting to work with. However, she always seemed to know who to call on the telephone to obtain the goal she was working towards. She was known above all for her tenacity in working for women's causes. By the end of her life she was well-known, respected, but sadly alone in solitude.^[5]

Recognition

• 1967: Officer of the Order of Canada

• 1968: received an honorary Ph.D. from the
  University of Montreal
  .

• 1974: promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada

• 1974: Loyola College, one of Concordia University's founding institutions, awarded her the Loyola Medal.^[13]

• 1979: one of the first recipients of the Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case.^[14]

• 1980: awarded the title of "Grand Montrealer" from the city of Montreal, in the social category^[15]

• 1980: received an honorary doctorate from Concordia University^[16]

• 1981: received an honorary Ph.D. from the University of Windsor

• 1982: the federal government created the Thérèse Casgrain Volunteer Award^{[note 1]}

• 1985: Canada Post honoured Thérèse Casgrain with a postage stamp^[18]

• 1991-1992: received the medal of the Bar of Montreal (a posthumous title).^[19]

• 2004: commemorated on the
  Canadian Journey Series, along with The Famous Five.^[20] This commemoration was discontinued in 2012 with the introduction of a new design on the reverse of the fifty-dollar bill.^[17]

• 2012: statue of Casgrain, along with Marie Lacoste Gérin-Lajoie, Idola Saint-Jean and Marie-Claire Kirkland, unveiled on the grounds of the National Assembly of Quebec by Pauline Marois, first female premier of Quebec, to commemorate the role of women in politics in Quebec^[21]

• 2016: appointed commander of the Order of Montreal (a posthumous title)^[15]

• 2022: named a National Historic Person by the government of Canada

Archives

The Thérèse-Casgrain fonds is conserved in Ottawa by Library and Archives Canada.^[22] The archival reference number is R7906, former archival reference number MG32-C25. The fonds covers the date range 1818 to 1981. It consists of 2.05 metres of textual records and 534 photographs.

The Thérèse F.-Casgrain Foundation fonds is conserved at the Montreal archives centre of the National Library and Archives of Quebec.^[23]

Publications

Thérèse F. Casgrain, Une femme chez les hommes (Montréal: Éditions du Jour, 1971)

Thérèse F. Casgrain, A Woman in a Man's World (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1972)

Notes

References