Women | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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  • Article

    Elizabeth Smart

    Elizabeth Smart, writer (born 27 December 1913 in Ottawa, ON; died 4 March 1986 in London, England). In 1945, a slim work with a long title — By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept — was published in England by Elizabeth Smart, an unknown Canadian writer living in London. The book was based on Smart’s love affair with the poet George Barker, and Smart’s mother used her influence with Prime Minister Mackenzie King to have the book banned from Canada. However, it was hailed as a masterpiece of poetic prose when it was later republished in paperback. In 2021, Marie Frankland’s French translation of Smart’s The Collected Poems won a Governor General’s Literary Award.  

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/26736d12-0574-46f1-84eb-f3aebff4a3c1.jpg Elizabeth Smart

  • Article

    Emily Hampshire

    Emily Hampshire, actor (born 29 August 1979 in Montreal, QC). Emily Hampshire is perhaps best known for her award-winning turn as Stevie Budd in the acclaimed CBC comedy Schitt’s Creek (2015–20). A professional actor since she was 16, Hampshire has had a long career in film and television, with nearly 100 credits to her name. She has won a Gemini Award, a Canadian Comedy Award and seven Canadian Screen Awards.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/EmilyHampshireTweetOnly.jpg Emily Hampshire

  • Article

    Emily Murphy (Plain-Language Summary)

    Emily Murphy (née Ferguson), pen name Janey Canuck, writer, journalist, magistrate, political and legal reformer (born 14 March 1868 in Cookstown, ON; died 27 October 1933 in Edmonton, AB). Emily Murphy was the first woman magistrate (justice of the peace) in the British Empire. She was also one of the Famous Five behind the Persons Case. It ruled that women were persons in the eyes of the law. Murphy was an outspoken feminist and suffragist. She is also controversial. Her views on immigration and eugenics have been seen as racist and elitist. She was named a Person of National Historic Significance in 1958. She was made an honorary senator in 2009. This article is a plain-language summary of Emily Murphy. If you are interested in reading about this topic in more depth, please see our full-length entry: Emily Murphy.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/f2df0151-1333-440b-ae34-65430693183c.jpg Emily Murphy (Plain-Language Summary)

  • Article

    Frances Anne Hopkins

    Frances Anne Hopkins, artist (born 2 February 1838 in the United Kingdom; died 5 March 1919 in London, United Kingdom). Frances Anne Hopkins was an artist who sketched and painted Canadian landscapes. Her most famous paintings, including Shooting the Rapids and Canoes in a Fog, Lake Superior, depict long-distance canoe voyages undertaken by the Hudson’s Bay Company in the 1860s.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/6778ff80-ea27-4873-96d7-68e5d7765129.jpg Frances Anne Hopkins

  • Article

    Frances Bay

    Frances Evelyn Bay (née Goffman), actor (born 23 January 1919 in Manville, Alberta; died 15 September 2011 in Los Angeles, California). Frances Bay began her career as a radio actor with the CBC. She studied with Uta Hagen and worked on stage for many years before beginning a Hollywood career when she was in her 50s. Primarily known for playing sweet older women in comedic roles, she amassed nearly 180 credits and was one of the most recognizable character actors of the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. She won a Gemini Award in 1997 for a guest role in Road to Avonlea and was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2008.

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    https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Frances Bay

  • Article

    Freda Diesing

    Freda Diesing, Haida artist (born 2 June 1925 in Prince Rupert, BC; died there 3 December 2002). Diesing was best known for her contributions to reviving traditional Haida art forms, including wood carving, mask carving and totem carving. She was one of the few women carvers who mastered the medium, and was partly responsible for bringing the style to an international audience. Diesing worked to ensure the style and tradition of Haida art was passed on to new generations. (See also Northwest Coast Indigenous Art and Contemporary Indigenous Art in Canada.)

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/FredaDiesing/FredaMask1.jpg Freda Diesing

  • Article

    Hannah Moscovitch

    Hannah Moscovitch, playwright (born 5 June 1978 in Ottawa, ON). Hannah Moscovitch is one of Canada’s most produced and prominent contemporary playwrights. Her plays tackle complex and often politically charged issues and have won multiple Dora Awards. Moscovitch has also been nominated for the Carol Bolt Award, the Toronto Arts Council Foundation Emerging Artist Award, the K.M. Hunter Award, and the international Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She is the first playwright to win a Trillium Book Award and the first Canadian woman to win a Windham–Campbell Literature Prize, a $150,000 award from Yale University. She also won a 2021 Governor General’s Literary Award for her drama Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/edc6eb96-3f2d-4253-9f02-6a0e7fc4d894.jpg Hannah Moscovitch

  • Article

    Haviah Mighty

    Haviah Mighty, rapper, musician, songwriter, producer (born 18 December 1992 in Toronto, ON). Haviah Mighty is one of Canada’s best young rappers. She is known for the intensity of her performances, her politically charged lyrics and for addressing issues of systemic injustice. Her first studio album 13th Floor (2019) won the Polaris Music Prize, making Mighty the first Black woman and first rapper to win the prize. She also became the first woman to win the Juno Award for Rap Album of the Year when her mixtape Stock Exchange (2021) won in 2022.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/48790946786_5c3e2e82c0_c.jpg Haviah Mighty

  • Article

    I Couldn't Forget: Reflections on Truth and Reconciliation

    Author Lee Maracle reflects on the presentation of the summary of the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission by Justice Murray Sinclair on 2 June 2015.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/e2fc5e7b-a9d8-44b1-9ad2-d3eb4b918457.jpg I Couldn't Forget: Reflections on Truth and Reconciliation

  • Article

    Jennifer Podemski

    Jennifer Podemski, actor, producer, writer, director (born 3 May 1973 in Toronto, ON). Jennifer Podemski established herself as an actor in Bruce McDonald’s Dance Me Outside (1994) and CBC’s The Rez (1996–97). She then became one of the leading Indigenous film and television producers in Canada. At the 2023 Canadian Screen Awards, she received the Academy Board of Directors’ Tribute Award in recognition of “her extraordinary impact on the growth of the Canadian media industry.”

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/Producer-actor_Jennifer_Podemski.jpg Jennifer Podemski

  • Article

    Jessie Reyez

    Jessie Reyez, singer, songwriter (born 12 June 1991 in Toronto, ON). Jessie Reyez released her first EP, Kiddo, in 2017. That same year, she won the inaugural Canadian Songwriter’s Hall of Fame Slaight Music Emerging Songwriter Award. She has since released several critically acclaimed records, the EP Being Human in Public (2018) and the albums Before Love Came to Kill Us (2020) and Yessie (2022). She has been nominated for a Grammy Award and was shortlisted twice for the Polaris Music Prize. She has won five Juno Awards, including Breakthrough Artist of the Year in 2018, and three for R&B/Soul Recording of the Year (2019, 2020, 2023).

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/1024px-Collision_2019_-_Toronto_-_ENX_9706_47894938191.jpg Jessie Reyez

  • Article

    Lisa LaFlamme

    Lisa LaFlamme, OC, OOnt, journalist, broadcaster (born 1964 in Kitchener, ON). Lisa LaFlamme is known for her long and distinguished career as a high-profile television journalist. She was the first woman to host CTV National News, a role she held — as chief news anchor and senior editor — for over a decade. She was named Best National News Anchor at the Canadian Screen Awards five times. Her abrupt termination from CTV, announced in August 2022, was met with broad public outrage. She has been appointed to the Order of Canada and the Order of Ontario.

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    https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Lisa LaFlamme

  • Article

    Lisa LeBlanc

    Lisa LeBlanc, singer, songwriter, musician (born 13 August 1990 in Rosaireville, NB). Lisa LeBlanc has known success ever since her first album came out in 2012. Her music, which she describes as folk-trash with bluegrass and Cajun accents, reaches a wide audience. Her songs are often humorous accounts of the perils of love. She has been compared to Bob Dylan, Dolly Parton and even Quebec singer-songwriter Plume Latraverse. Beneath her often funny lyrics, there are pearls of poetry. Her choice of words and her relentless sincerity transform the ordinary and anecdotal into a thing of beauty. Listening to Lisa LeBlanc, one can easily be laughing one minute and all choked up the next. She belongs to a generation of young Acadian artists — such as the Hay Babies, Radio, Joseph Edgar and Les Hôtesses d’Hilaire — who are firmly grounded in modern life. She says that she has been influenced by Sam Roberts, Feist, Aerosmith and, most strongly, by Stevie Nicks. Since LeBlanc’s career began, her albums have sold slightly over 140,000 copies in North America and Europe. She composes and sings in both French and English. Winner of the 2010 Festival international de la chanson de Granby, she has won many other awards in New Brunswick and Quebec and across Canada. LeBlanc first made her name with a song whose title echoes its refrain, with which many of her fans seemed to identify: “Aujourd’hui, ma vie c’est d’la m—de”  (“Today, my life is s—t”).

    "https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/051052d9-c140-4d7a-9768-aa1d64cedeb3.jpg" // resources/views/front/categories/view.blade.php
    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/051052d9-c140-4d7a-9768-aa1d64cedeb3.jpg Lisa LeBlanc

  • Article

    Lise Watier

    Marie Ginette Jeanne Lise Watier, OC, OQ, businesswoman (born 8 November 1944 in Montreal, QC). Lise Watier is the founder of the company Lise Watier Cosmétiques, launched in 1972. She left the management of the company and retired in 2013 to focus on her foundation, the Lise Watier Foundation. She received many awards and distinctions throughout her career.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/lisewatier/lisewatier.JPG Lise Watier

  • Article

    Lucy Maud Montgomery (Plain-Language Summary)

    Lucy Maud Montgomery, OBE, writer (born 30 November 1874 in Clifton (now New London), PEI; died 24 April 1942 in Toronto, ON). Lucy Maud Montgomery is perhaps Canada’s most widely read author. Her first novel, Anne of Green Gables (1908), was an instant best-seller. It has remained in print for more than 100 years. Montgomery wrote more than 500 short stories and 21 novels. She also authored two poetry collections and numerous journal and essay collections. Her body of work has sold around 50 million copies worldwide. Montgomery was named an Officer of both the Order of the British Empire and the Literary and Artistic Institute of France. She was the first Canadian woman to be made a member of the British Royal Society of Arts. She was declared a Person of National Historic Significance in Canada in 1943. This article is a plain-language summary of Lucy Maude Montgomery. If you are interested in reading about this topic in more depth, please see our full-length entry: Lucy Maude Montgomery.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/08c1fb27-60ac-4c7f-82e5-65513d90a3c4.jpg Lucy Maud Montgomery (Plain-Language Summary)