Mr. Speaker, in recognition of Black History Month, I want to honour a colleague and friend, Rosemary Brown.
Social worker, activist, politician, and determined feminist, Rosemary was dedicated to promoting gender and racial equality at home and abroad. As the first Black woman elected to a Canadian legislature, and the first woman to run for the leadership of a federal party, she opened doors for more women and people of colour to hold public office.
As an MLA in British Columbia, she worked to eliminate sexism from school textbooks, to end discrimination on the basis of age and marital status, and to increase the number of women on public boards.
Rosemary was the CEO of the MATCH International Women's Fund, chief commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and a recipient of the Order of Canada.
Rosemary Brown dedicated her life to public service and to the belief, as she said, that:
Until all of us have made it, none of us have made it.