A number of women have left their political mark on the Kingston area — whether it was one of the longest-serving members of Parliament, Flora MacDonald, or the first female mayor of the city, Helen Cooper, women have broken plenty of barriers.
Isabel Turner was the first female councillor in the former Kingston Township back in the late 1970s.
“Yes it was difficult sitting in many, many cases with only men who seemed to think women didn’t have much of a brain, when in fact we did.
“We perhaps had a different way of going about it but we did it with much more feel and much more responsibility.”
Turner also became the second female mayor of Kingston. The first was Cooper in the early 1980s. The city’s cultural heritage manager Jennifer Campbell says Cooper really was a trailblazer.
“She was pioneering in the political landscape of which was heavily male-dominated. And so, not only as the first woman alderman but also as our first female mayor.
“She carved the way for a lot of political involvement and activism that’s followed her.”
On the provincial front, Kingston’s first female MPP is the city’s current MPP Sophie Kiwala who started her tenure in 2014, who continues to contribute to Kingston female firsts, helping to shape the city, the province and the country.