Margaret Haile

Margaret Haile Haile spent some time working for socialist causes in New England. A resident of Massachusetts in 1901, Haile was a member of the nine member unity committee of the Chicago faction of the Social Democratic Party as it planned the formation of the Socialist Party of America. She was one of two women on that body.

Haile returned to Canada shortly thereafter, and became in 1902 the first woman to run for legislative office in Canada, when she was nominated on the platform of the Canadian Socialist League as a candidate in Toronto North in the 1902 Ontario provincial election. Although her nomination was accepted and she received 79 votes, a woman was not eligible to sit as a member of the Legislative Assembly. She may have been the first woman to run for major elected office within the British Empire.

Political activism and socialist organizing

Before entering electoral politics in Canada in 1902, Margaret Haile had already spent several years active in the socialist movement in the United States, where she worked as an organizer and political writer within the growing network of North American socialist activists.

By the late 1890s, Haile was living and working among socialist groups in New England. During this period she became involved with the Socialist Labor Party, one of the most prominent socialist organizations in the United States at the time. Kealey describes Haile as an expert stenographer with wide experience in the New England states, where she served as a state secretary for socialist organizations.

Haile's prominence within socialist circles was recognized even before she returned to Canada. In 1900 Frederic Heath included her in Social Democracy Red Book: A Brief History of Socialism in America, which listed "One Hundred Well-known Social Democrats". Her name appeared alongside leading socialist figures such as Eugene V. Debs, indicating that she was already known within the movement at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Modern historians of labour and socialist movements have identified Haile as part of the small but influential group of women active in early socialist organizing. Scholars including Kealey, Newton, and Joan Sangster note that women often helped build socialist networks as lecturers, writers, and organizers during the decades before women gained the right to vote.

After several years of activism in the American socialist movement, Haile returned to Canada in the early twentieth century. Drawing on her organizing experience, she soon became involved in socialist politics in Toronto and in 1902 stood as a candidate for the Canadian Socialist League in the Ontario provincial election.

In popular culture Haile appears regularly during Season 8 of the Canadian television period detective series Murdoch Mysteries. Her final appearance is in "Election Day" (March 23, 2015), episode 17 of season 8, where Haile and her suffragette supporters insist that her name be on the ballot alongside George Marter and Dr. Beattie Nesbitt for the Toronto North riding during the 1902 Ontario general election. Haile is played by Nicole Underhay.