Margaret McCain

The Honourable Margaret Norrie McCain is a champion of Canada’s youngest citizens. Together with her husband, Wallace and her four children, she founded the Margaret and Wallace McCain Family Foundation (www.mwmccain.ca) that promotes early childhood education opportunities for all of Canada’s children.

Margaret was born in northern Quebec, her father was a prominent Quebec mining engineer and her mother was Senator Margaret Norrie of Truro, Nova Scotia. McCain received a Bachelor of Arts with honours in history from Mount Allison University and a Bachelor of Social Work from the University of Toronto. Margaret’s concern about family violence, long before it was recognized in mainstream thinking, was evident in her term of office as the 27th Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick from June 1994 to April 1997. She was a founding member of the Muriel McQueen Fergusson Foundation whose mission is to eliminate family violence through public education and research.

Margaret’s knowledge and understanding about the impact of early experiences on lifelong learning, behaviour and health are evident in the four Early Years Studies (earlyyearsstudy.ca) and explain why she champions universal early childhood education as a first tier of education that is as important as those that follow.