Rosemary Brown (politician)

Rosemary Brown, P.C., O.C., O.B.C., M.S.W., LL.D. (June 17, 1930 – April 26, 2003) was a Canadian politician.

Early years

Brown was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1930, and moved to Canada in 1950 to study at McGill University in Montreal. She served as an Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in the British Columbia legislature from 1972 to 1986, making her the first Black Canadian woman to be elected to a Canadian provincial legislature.

Political history

In 1975, she became the first black woman to run for the leadership of a Canadian federal party (and only the second woman, after Mary Walker-Sawka), finishing a strong second (with 41+% of the votes on the fourth and final ballot) to Ed Broadbent in that year's New Democratic Party leadership convention. After departing politics, she became a Professor of women's studies at Simon Fraser University, and in 1996 was named an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 1995, she was awarded the Order of British Columbia.

Brown was sworn to the Queen's Privy Council for Canada as a member of the Canadian Security Intelligence Review Committee from 1993 to 1998. This board is the overseer for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS. She also served on the Order of Canada Advisory Committee from 1999 until her death in 2003.

She died of an apparent heart attack on April 26, 2003 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

References

* Documentary - For Jackson: A Time Capsule From His Two Grandmothers (Biography of Rosemary Brown)
* [http://fcis.oise.utoronto.ca/~gpieters/brownobit.html Rosemary Brown]
* [http://nid-78.newsdetail.bc.ndp.ca/ Rosemary Brown]