Agnes Macphail

Standing for the Progressive Party in Grey Southeast in the 1921 federal election, Macphail defeated two male opponents to become the sole woman in the 235-member House of Commons. For fourteen years, she sat as the lone female voice in Parliament, enduring patronizing press scrutiny with razor-sharp wit.

Macphail exposed brutal conditions inside Canadian penitentiaries, prompting the 1938 Archambault Commission that introduced humane vocational training and probation systems. Elected to the Ontario Legislature in 1943, she championed Canada's first equal pay legislation in 1951.