Life and Career
Nancy Ruth was born in Toronto, Ontario, and is an alumna of Branksome Hall. Before being appointed to the Senate, Nancy Ruth was a social activist and philanthropist. She founded several women's organizations in Canada, including the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund, the Canadian Women's Foundation and a women's studies chair at Mount Saint Vincent University. She has also been a noted benefactor of hospitals and art galleries throughout Canada, and was named a member of the Order of Canada in 1994.
She has long battled for women's constitutional rights and thus opposed the Charlottetown Accord in 1992. She is also a vocal opponent of pornography. Her support for tougher child pornography laws made her a controversial figure amongst other gay rights activists, who saw the legislation as dangerously ambiguous in its definitions and broad in scope.
She was born Nancy Ruth (Rowell) Jackman, and is the sister of former Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Hal Jackman, the daughter of former Member of Parliament Harry Jackman and the granddaughter of former MP and Ontario Liberal Party leader Newton Rowell. She changed her name in the mid-1990s; she does not use "Ruth" as a last name, instead using both her names as given names with no last name, and therefore prefers to be known as "Senator Nancy Ruth" instead of "Senator Ruth." She is alphabetized under "N," not "R", on the Senate website.
A Red Tory, Nancy Ruth campaigned for the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario on two occasions in the early 1990s, when she was known as Nancy Jackman. The first was in the 1990 provincial election, when she lost to New Democratic Party candidate Zanana Akande by fewer than 1,000 votes in the riding of St. Andrew—St. Patrick. On April 1, 1993, she lost to Liberal Tim Murphy by over 2,000 votes in a by-election held in St. George—St. David.
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