McCarthy, Grace Mary

• Winterbottom, Grace Mary

Grace Mary McCarthy (née Winterbottom) was a Canadian politician, florist, and Member of the BC Legislative Assembly (MLA) as part of the Social Credit Party. She was born on October 14, 1927 at Vancouver's Grace Hospital, less than a month after it opened. She opened her first flower shop at 17 years old, Grayce Florists, eventually growing her business into five flourishing shops. In 1948, she married her husband, Raymond McCarthy, with whom she had a son, Calvin, and a daughter, Mary. She then decided to take on a public role, and was elected as a Vancouver Parks Commissioner in the 1950s. During her three terms at the municipal level, she helped to secure open spaces for park development, led efforts to coordinate recreational activities for people with disabilities, and was instrumental in the creation of the VanDusen Botanical Gardens. She was actively recruited by then-premier W. A. C. Bennett; in an attempt to improve his hold on power, Bennett promised that any woman elected to the legislature while he was in power would become a member of his Cabinet. In the 1965, provincial general election, McCarthy ran successfully as the Social Credit Party candidate for Vancouver-Little Mountain. During her first term, in 1968, McCarthy successfully lobbied provincial and federal governments to enable women to apply for mortgages without a male guarantor. During the New Democratic Party administration of 1972 to 1975, McCarthy served as President of the Social Credit Party. She was widely credited with rebuilding the Party and helping to ensure its return to power in the subsequent provincial general election, for which efforts she became popularly known as “Amazing Grace”. To that end, she increased membership in the party from 5,000 to 70,000 in two years. Following the electoral victory of the Social Credit Party in 1975, McCarthy became the first woman in Canada to serve as Deputy Premier. Grace was re-elected in 1979, 1983, and 1986. As a member of cabinet, McCarthy held various portfolios including recreation and tourism, provincial secretary, human resources, government services, and economic development. She initiated the first toll-free help line for children, worked to establish the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre and was instrumental in securing British Columbia’s role as host of Expo '86. She founded Canada’s first school of floral design, established Canada’s first linear parkway and SkyTrain, and initiated BC’s first film promotion office. In 1982, McCarthy was suspected of interfering in the re-drawing of the electoral boundaries of her Little Mountain constituency, to include an appendage of a wealthy Westside area of Vancouver, helping ensure her electoral success. This appendage and subsequent scandal became known as "Gracie's Finger". The actual area in question was between 16th and 33rd Avenues in Vancouver around the Arbutus Street corridor. In 1986, she parlayed the idea to illuminate the main cables of Vancouver's Lions Gate Bridge and arranged private-sector sponsorship by the Guinness family, the bridge's builders and original owners. After W. A. C. Bennett stepped down in 1986, McCarthy stood in the 1986 leadership election to succeed him. She placed third, behind Brian Smith and victor Bill Vander Zalm. In Vander Zalm's initial cabinet, she was named Deputy Premier of British Columbia and Minister of Economic Development. However, in a shuffle following the 1986 election, McCarthy gained responsibility for international trade, but lost the deputy premier title, which she admitted left her a little disappointed. On July 6, 1988, McCarthy resigned from cabinet, in protest of Vander Zalm's leadership and the interference of "arrogant" civil servants in the premier's office. Her resignation came just one week after Brian Smith had also resigned in protest of Vander Zalm's leadership style. After a series of scandals and discontent within caucus led to Vander Zalm's resignation in 1991, McCarthy entered the 1991 leadership election to succeed him. Though considered the frontrunner in the contest, she was defeated in an upset by Rita Johnston, a Vander Zalm loyalist. Johnston lost the 1991 provincial election, with the party only winning third-place status in the legislature behind the resurgent Liberal Party. Johnston lost her own seat and resigned as leader shortly thereafter. McCarthy was chosen to replace her at the 1993 leadership election. Though finally achieving her goal of becoming the leader of the Social Credit party, McCarthy struggled as leader. First, she unexpectedly lost her by-election in Matsqui, a stalwart Social Credit riding, to Liberal candidate Mike de Jong. Then, the Social Credit lost official party status in the BC Legislature when four of the remaining six MLAs left the party to join the fledgling BC Reform Party, rather than work with her as the leader. By 1994, after failing to get any semblance of control over the party, she resigned. In the 1996 election, the Socreds lost all their remaining seats. In 1992, Grace was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. She was the first woman president of a Chamber of Commerce in Canada and the first woman member of Variety International. In 1995, she founded (with Mary McCarthy Parsons (her daughter) and J. Lindsay Gordon) and became president of the CH.I.L.D. Foundation (Children with Intestinal and Liver Disorders), raising funds for research to help children with Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis. The foundation raised over 10 million dollars, establishing the first chair in pediatric gastroenterology research in Canada at UBC and the first endowed program and the first laboratory at BC Children’s Hospital. She received an Honorary Doctor of Laws from UBC and Simon Fraser University; Honorary Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada; Honorary Doctor of Technology from BCIT; Order of Distinguished Service Worldwide from the Salvation Army; Lions International Highest Award; Marketer of the Year; Brotherhood Interfaith Award; Variety Golden Heart Award; and BC’s Top Ten Citizens of the Century. In 2004, Grace was awarded the Order of British Columbia. She passed away on May 24, 2017, at age 89 after a lengthy battle with a brain tumor. Grace McCarthy Plaza, located at the top of Queen Elizabeth Park near the Bloedel Conservatory in Vancouver, is named in her honour, as well as the Grace McCarthy Highway in Israel.

Vancouver
Victoria, BC

Politician
Florist
Civil servant
MLA
Entrepreneur

RAD, July 2008 version. Canadian Council of Archives.

Catalogued July 2023.

1) Archival material
2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_McCarthy
3) https://www.leg.bc.ca/wotv/pages/featured-women/grace-mccarthy.aspx
4) https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/grace-mccarthy-plaque-1.6469911
5) https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/grace-mccarthy-obit-1.3987119
6) https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/grace-mccarthy-the-first-lady-of-b-c-s-social-credit-dies-at-89
7) https://www.child.ca/the-honourable-grace-mary-mccarthy/
8) https://orderofbc.gov.bc.ca/members/obc-2004/2004-grace-mccarthy/