Florence Bird (1908-1998)

Florence Bird had a distinguished career in print and then broadcast journalism and as a news commentator at the CBC from 1941 to 1967. She also produced ground-breaking documentaries on women’s working conditions and on conditions for women in Canada’s prisons. During the Second World War she wrote Holding the Home Front, a column on Canadian women’s contributions to the war effort for the Winnipeg Tribune.

In 1967, in recognition of her commitment to women's advancement, Florence Bird was named chair in the pivotal Royal Commission on the Status of Women, becoming the first woman to chair a royal commission. Also known as the Bird Commission, the report made social policy and social justice recommendations on a range of issues including pay equity, paid maternity leave, childcare, reproductive rights and freedoms, violence against women, health care, education, employment, pensions, housing and sports. It also made recommendations for Francophone, immigrant, rural and farm women, and for Indigenous women, including gender discrimination under the Indian Act. Florence Bird was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1971. Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau appointed her to the Senate in 1978 and she received the Governor General's Persons Award in 1985.

In reference to her pen name as a journalist, she published Anne Francis: An Autobiography in 1974 and later, Holiday in the Woods in 1976.