Hon. Joan Fraser:

Honourable senators, Sheila Finestone was born in Montreal and had deep roots in that city. She was the daughter of Monroe Abbey and Minnie Cummings Abbey, who were deeply involved in community service. Her father was once President of the Canadian Jewish Congress. She carried those values with her until the day she died.

She graduated from McGill University in 1947, got married that year and proceeded to have four sons, which normally would be considered a full-time career in its own right. It is written somewhere that the mothers of three sons have a special place in heaven. I cannot imagine how special the place must be for mothers of four sons. That, of course, was not enough to occupy Sheila Finestone.

Her community work was famous. Notably, from 1977 to 1980, she was President of the Fédération des femmes du Québec. It was in those years that she was one of the organizers of the famed Yvette rally, preceding that referendum on Quebec independence, which had such a profound influence on the course of that campaign.

She came to the House of Commons in 1984 and was re-elected in the following three elections. She came to represent the riding of Mount Royal, which is one of the most historic ridings imaginable. Her predecessor was the Right Honourable Pierre Trudeau and her successor was the Honourable Irwin Cotler. That might lead you to think that to be an MP from Mount Royal, one needed to be dedicated to human rights; and you would be right. Sheila Finestone was dedicated to every aspect of human rights, in particular women's rights as well as minority language rights, ethnic rights and humanitarian work, both here and abroad.

In the House of Commons, Sheila Finestone served as Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and the Status of Women. She led the Canadian delegation to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995. When she came to the Senate in 1999, she barely took a deep breath before she went right on running and served here as Deputy Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights. She did enormous work in the Inter-Parliamentary Union, where she was an around-the-world renowned fighter against land mines and for the Ottawa Treaty and the International Criminal Court.

Those are dry facts, but those who knew her will tell you that Sheila Finestone was also one of the warmest, loveliest, and most energetic, indefatigable and caring people any of us will ever know. She was lovely. She was a world-class shopper and she was an absolutely devoted mother and grandmother. She wanted everyone else to be just as happy in their family as she was. She created happiness around her, and we owe her a great deal.

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