Pauline Jewett: A Passion for Canada

Barbara Robertson is the author of Wilfrid Laurier: The Great
Conciliator and the co-author of The Well-Filled Cupboard.

Pauline Jewett possessed an intellectual ability and a zest for life
that would have made her remarkable anywhere. Born in St. Catharines in
1922 into a Canada that recognized a woman’s right to a good education
but was more dubious about her having a career, Jewett sailed through
Queen’s University. From there it was on to Harvard for a Ph.D. in
political science. Then began her frustrating search for an academic
position. The few available at the time were unlikely to go to women.
Eventually, Jewett secured a position at the newly established Carleton
University in Ottawa.

Though no one questioned her abilities as a teacher, her academic
career wasn’t a complete success. She found it hard to write books.
Perhaps more important, she was drawn to politics. In 1963, she was
elected to the House of Commons as Liberal MP for Northumberland.
Inspired by Pearsonian idealism, she was throughout her life a Canadian
nationalist with a passion for social justice. In 1971, disillusioned
with Trudeau as a leader and opposed to the imposition of the War
Measures Act, she left the Liberal Party and found a more congenial home
in the NDP. After serving as president of Simon Fraser University
(1974–78), she became MP for New Westminster-Coquitlam in 1979.

McKenzie had problems writing about Jewett. For one thing, McKenzie
finds it difficult to wrap her mind around life in Canada before 1960;
for example, her explanation of the Padlock Law is remarkably weak. No
less important, she had to deal with the fact that Jewett did not write
letters but instead communicated by phone. To compensate for the lack of
correspondence, McKenzie has, in addition to interviewing Jewett’s
family and friends for their memories, drawn on Jewett’s articles in
such periodicals as Maclean’s and the Canadian Forum. On the whole,
she has produced a reasonably competent biography of her thoroughly
engaging subject.