Canada’s new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau decided to make his cabinet half women, but the first female in Canada’s cabinet served more than 50 years ago.

Born January 28, 1905 in Hamilton, Ontario, Ellen Fairclough (then Ellen Cook) was an accountant who was elected to the House of Commons in 1950. She became the first Canadian female cabinet member when she was appointed Secretary of State by Prime Minister John George Diefenbaker in 1957, and shortly thereafter she became Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, where she worked to regulate immigration to Canada.