A Liberal-Labour LadyA Liberal Labour Lady restores British Columbias first female MLA and the British Empires first female cabinet minister to history. An imperial settler, liberal labour activist, and mainstream suffragist, Mary Ellen Smith (18631933) demanded a fair deal for deserving British women and men in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born in England in 1863, the daughter and wife of miners, she emigrated to Nanaimo, BC, in 1892. As she became