Helen Brimmell, pioneering press gallery member, honoured in House
Recognition comes as press gallery celebrates 150th anniversary
One of the earliest female members of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery was honoured Wednesday in the House of Commons for her years of work in the bureau.
Helen Brimmell graduated from the University of Toronto in 1943 and worked for the Canadian Press under her maiden name of Helen Bannerman in Toronto for a few years before being assigned to Parliament Hill in 1946.
She was the third woman to officially join the gallery, which at that time only allowed men to attend its annual dinner.
That fact was a bit of a sticking point when it came down to voting her in, Brimmell remembers.
"The chairman of the press gallery executive came to me and he said, 'Helen, we'd like to vote you in, but you have to promise not to try to come to the annual dinner' — which was, of course, a stag party," the 96-year-old told CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning.
"And I said, 'That's all right with me. If you want to have a stag party, I'm not going to crash it.' So they voted me in."
Brimmell remembers the day she got her membership pass and the excitement she felt at being able to have lunch in the Parliamentary restaurant as a full member — and not someone's guest — for the first time.
"The manager came out of her office, very graciously, to shoo me down to the cafeteria. ... And I just put my membership ... card on the table, I didn't say anything, and she read it. She didn't obviously believe it, but she apologized and went back to her office," she said with a laugh.
It wasn't the first time Brimmell's youthful appearance caused some trouble.
"I don't think I've ever looked my age because at that time I had to carry around my birth certificate to be served alcohol, and that went on for quite a while. And the secretaries [of politicians] always thought that I was just a gopher. They didn't realize what I was up to," she said.
She recalled sitting in an MP's office one day and hearing his secretary discuss how the MP was going to vote on a certain bill.
"They thought that I was a person of no account and they kept on talking about it. So when I was through with [the MP] I went back and told [the newsroom], and this was apparently quite a flip flop. ... And I got it because I looked so innocent."
Brimmell was honoured in the House today by Speaker Geoff Regan, alongside former Canadian Press and Globe and Mail journalist Bernard Dufresne, who first joined the press gallery in 1954.
The recognition comes as the gallery celebrates its 150th anniversary.
They will also appear at the launch of a book on the history of the press gallery, called Sharp Wits and Busy Pens: The Role of the Parliamentary Press Gallery Over the Years, co-edited by Josh Wingrove and Helene Buzzetti.
The launch takes place at Library and Archives Canada tonight.