On February 19, 1958, Fairclough became Canada's first female Acting Prime Minister while John Diefenbaker was out of the country.
On February 19, 1958, Ellen Fairclough made history again when she was designated Acting Prime Minister of Canada during a brief absence of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, becoming the first woman ever to hold this role, even temporarily, in Canadian history.
Though the appointment was for a short administrative stretch — covering the Prime Minister's travel — its symbolic weight was immense. It meant that, for the first time, a woman held the reins of the highest executive office in the land, if only in an acting capacity. This came barely eight months after Fairclough had already broken ground as the first woman in federal Cabinet, underscoring the rapid trust Diefenbaker placed in her abilities.
As Acting Prime Minister, Fairclough would have been responsible for overseeing government business, chairing Cabinet in the Prime Minister's stead, and being the nominal head of government for the duration of the appointment. For a country that would not see a woman actually elected Prime Minister until Kim Campbell in 1993, this 1958 moment stands as an important, if often overlooked, precedent.
The event highlighted both how far women had come in Canadian public life and how far they still had to go — Fairclough's turn as Acting Prime Minister was a first, but decades would pass before a woman led the government in her own right.