Grace McCarthy - Political Career

Political Career

In the 1960s Grace was a popular elected member of the City of Vancouver Parks Board. She was actively recruited to run for a seat in the Provincial Legislature by then Premier of the Province 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 1966 Grace successfully campaigned and was elected along with Les Peterson to co-represent the dual member riding of Vancouver-Little Mountain. Bennett kept his promise and together with Agnes Krips (also successful as a female candidate) Grace was made a Cabinet Minister without portfolio. McCarthy was later a senior cabinet minister, serving in a variety of portfolios, in the governments of Social Credit Premier W.R. Bennett from 1975 to 1986 and of Social Credit Premier Bill Vander Zalm from 1986 until her resignation from cabinet in 1988.
In 1968, McCarthy successfully lobbied both the Canadian federal and British Columbian provincial governments to broaden home ownership credit legislation to include single, divorced and widowed women without the need for a male guarantor.
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 Vancouver area, thus 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, McCarthy 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.