Eileen Dailly (15 February 1926 – 17 January 2011; 84 years)
Former B.C. education minister (second woman to hold this office) and deputy premier (first woman to hold this office)
Elected five terms as a Burnaby school trustee, and five terms as MLA for Burnaby North
- Went to John Oliver Secondary
- Started working as a teacher, at 18, on Denman Island, then in the Burnaby School District
- As education minister, she
- Banned corporal punishment in schools in 1973; the first province in Canada do so. It wasn’t until 1989 that the next province, Nova Scotia, followed suit. In fact, it wasn’t outlawed across the country until 2004, forcing Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan to join all the other provinces.
- Introduced mandatory kindergarten
- Introducing sex education to schools
- Created the first First Nations school board in the province (School District 92 Nisga’a), B.C.’s first aboriginal school district
Sources:
Obituary: Eileen Elizabeth Dailly (nee Gilmore)
https://www.mccallgardens.com/obituaries/eileen-elizabeth-dailly-nee-gilmore/
(Feb 3, 2011) Veteran politician Eileen Dailly remembered
https://web.archive.org/web/20120419001856/http://www.burnabynewsleader.com/news/115215279.html
(Feb 25, 2011) “She spared the rod and spoiled corporal punishment in school”
https://web.archive.org/web/20181024055108/http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20110225.OBDAILLYATL/BDAStory/BDA/deaths
(March 2012) Eileen Dailly: Minister of Education, 1972-1975
https://s.web.viu.ca/homeroom/content/topics/people/dailly.htm
Eileen Dailly First woman to serve as Acting President of the Executive Council (1972)
https://www.leg.bc.ca/learn/watv/biographies/eileen-dailly
Related:
Section 43 of the Criminal Code – Correction of Child by Force
Every schoolteacher, parent or person standing in the place of a parent is justified in using force by way of correction toward a pupil or child, as the case may be, who is under his care, if the force does not exceed what is reasonable under the circumstances.
Section 43 of the Criminal Code, which expressly offers parents and teachers a defence for using reasonable force to discipline a child, is a controversial provision of Canada’s criminal law.
Read more here:
(2016) The “Spanking” Law: Section 43 of the Criminal Code
https://lop.parl.ca/sites/PublicWebsite/default/en_CA/ResearchPublications/201635E
- In 2004, the Supreme Court of Canada interpreted this provision to determine its scope. As a result of that decision, it is illegal to use physical force to discipline teenagers or children under the age of two, to use objects – such as rulers or belts – against a child of any age, or to slap the head of any child.
- Legislation to repeal section 43 was introduced in both The House of Commons and the Senate as recently as 2022.
- introduced on May 19, 2022 passed First Reading and has been stalled ever since.
- Finally, certain groups are more likely to have experienced abuse as children, including 2SLGBTQI+ people, First Nations and Métis people, and people with disabilities.
- TRC’s Call to Action 6 to repeal section 43 of the Criminal Code.
- While 196 countries have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as of January 2023, a smaller number – 65 countries – had fully prohibited corporal punishment both in the home and at school.
Repeal 43: Section 43 of the Criminal Code – Correction of Child by Force https://www.repeal43.org/