Grace MacInnis: A Story of Love and Integrity

D.M.L. Farr is professor emeritus of history at Carleton University in
Ottawa and the editor of Life and Letters of Sir Wilfrid Laurier.

Grace MacInnis existed at the heart of the CCF/NDP movement. Her father
was J.S. Woodsworth, the saintly founder of the party; her husband Angus
MacInnis, for 27 years a socialist MP for Vancouver; and she herself
represented the party in both the British Columbia legislature and the
House of Commons. She was not present at the founding conference in 1933
that issued the Regina Manifesto, but there was little that occurred in
the CCF/NDP movement after that time in which she was not involved. Her
life is a personal commentary on the 60-year history of Canadian
socialism.

Ann Farrell, a journalist, has painted an affectionate portrait. If
there is little in her account that is new, there are many intimate
glimpses of the Woodsworth family, the leadership of the CCF/NDP, and
the differences of opinion that divided it. The activities of the
Communists in the socialist movement in the Depression, the issue of the
nature of Canada’s participation in World War II, the treatment of
Japanese Canadians during the war, feminist concerns in the 1970s—all
caused strains within the CCF/NDP.

Grace MacInnis believed that poverty was the fundamental social
problem; from this conviction arose her life-long campaign for reform in
such areas as public housing, day care, consumer protection, birth
control , and pensions and allowances. Perhaps her finest moment came
during World War II, when she, as a B.C. MLA, and her husband, as a
member of Parliament, stood against the clamor on the West Coast for the
removal and property confiscation of 11,000 Japanese Canadians. Their
stand took a measure of courage that has been rarely seen in Canadian
public life.

The biography is based on wide range of sources, including a file of
personal correspondence between Grace and Angus that extended over 30
years. The author conducted interviews with a host of people who worked
with or observed Grace MacInnis. She also found family photographs to
illustrate her account.

The book is longer than it needs to be, and some of the material
presented is undigested. The author’s treatment is uncritical, and her
judgments verge occasionally on the naive. Grace comes through as an
earnest socialist, ahead of her time on many subjects but rigid on
others. For a generation in which the competence of government to bring
about social reform is under attack, Grace MacInnis’s story represents
the aspiration of an earlier and more hopeful age.