Obituary: Finestone remembered as equal rights champion

By Joel Goldenberg

Sheila Finestone, the Liberal Mount Royal MP from 1984 to 1999 and a senator from 1999 to 2002, died peacefully Monday after a battle with cancer.

Before her political career began, she was deeply involved in Jewish and general community affairs, including becoming president of Women’s Federation of Allied Jewish Community Services of Montreal (now Federation CJA) and Les Federation des Femmes de Québec. She was also heavily involved on the No side in the 1980 sovereignty referendum. She also worked for the cause of Soviet Jews. Finestone was the recipient of numerous awards for all her efforts, including the Distinguished Service Award on behalf of the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians in 2008.

Current Mount Royal MP Irwin Cotler said Finestone was “a most devoted MP — a tireless worker — the welfare of whose constituents was always uppermost in her mind. She was a natural choice for Secretary of State for multiculturalism and the status of women — and reflected and represented the cases and causes of her constituents in an exemplary manner.”
Côte St. Luc mayor Anthony Housefather and councillor Allan Levine were both high ranking members of the Mount Royal riding association when Finestone represented the area. Both remembered her activism in many areas.

“I worked with her a long time,” said Housefather, who was youth vice-president of the riding from 1988 to 1997. “She was a very spunky woman. She was very dynamic, assertive and very avant-garde in terms of understanding that women deserved full equality during a generation when not everyone recognized that. She made a huge contribution during her life to the global community of Canada, Quebec, Montreal, to Côte St. Luc, Hampstead, TMR and the Jewish community. If more people put their hearts and souls into the community as she and her family did — they were people who gave back to the community — the world would be a better place.”

Levine, who was vice-president of Finestone’s riding association during her entire time as MP, said she was a “fabulous lady.

“She travelled throughout the world for women’s rights, and she also sponsored a bill against land mines. She headed the commission against anti-personnel land mines — she was a great humanitarian. She had an unbelievable amount of energy. She really loved people.”

Finestone’s funeral is being held today, Wednesday June 10 at 2 p.m. at Paperman and Sons. The family is asking that contributions in her memory be made to the “Minnie and Monroe Abbey Memorial Fund” c/o Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1-416-485-8000.