Viola MacMillan

Early Life and Education

Viola MacMillan was born near Windermere in the Muskoka region of Ontario. Her father, Thomas, was a farmer and mail coach driver, and her mother, Harriet, was a midwife and cleaner. MacMillan was raised on the family farm in Deebank, one of the youngest of 15 children in the family.

The Huggard family was impoverished, and from a young age MacMillan assisted her mother with cleaning jobs. At age 12, MacMillan had to leave school to help her family while three of her brothers served during the First World War. After the war, MacMillan returned to school and later moved to North Bay to take a secretarial course. After two months, she had to drop out because her father ran out of money for course fees. She moved to Windsor, working as a telephone operator and live-in maid. She saved enough money to attend a business college and then found employment as a legal secretary.

Interest in Mining

Viola MacMillan’s interest in the mining industry was sparked by her brother Joe’s stories of working in a mine in Cobalt, Ontario. On a visit to Cobalt in 1922, MacMillan convinced the mine captain to allow her to tour the mines. It was considered unlucky for women to be in mines, so MacMillan disguised herself as a man to gain entrance. This visit further ignited her interest in the industry, and she recounted, “It was one of the most glorious experiences of my lifetime, and I was completely hooked on the glamour of mining.”

While living in Windsor, she met George MacMillan, and the couple married in 1923. In 1926, George and Viola travelled to the bush to investigate a mining claim for his uncle. While that claim was unsuccessful, the couple’s interest was piqued, and they spent the next several summers prospecting. In Windsor in the off-season, MacMillan researched as much as she could about mining while running a real-estate office and taking on other jobs. By the end of the decade, MacMillan announced that she was going to prospect full-time, and George agreed to join her.

Prospecting Business

Viola and George MacMillan prospected across the country for the next decade and a half. George primarily conducted the prospecting while MacMillan turned to arranging the deals and financing. In 1933, she established MacMillan Securities Limited to invest in mining projects. Within two years, her business flourished, and she moved her office from Timmins to Toronto’s financial center. One of her notable successes was a $50,000 investment in the Victor Mine in British Columbia, which netted $9 million in metals and minerals in less than 15 years. The MacMillans were prominent figures in the mining industry and found substantial financial success in their business.

During the Second World War, Viola MacMillan used her expertise to help the government procure strategic metals for the war effort. As part of the War Metals Advisory Committee, she worked with geologists to organize educational programs across the country to train potential prospectors in finding the minerals and metals needed for the war.

MacMillan also assisted in creating the Emergency Gold Mining Assistance Act of 1948 and successfully lobbied for legislation to give tax relief for grubstaking and financing prospecting.

Prospectors and Developers Association

In the 1930s, Viola and George MacMillan joined the Ontario Prospectors and Developers Association (now the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada). MacMillan served as the organization’s secretary-treasurer for three years before being unanimously elected president in 1944. She was the first woman to hold the role. Re-elected annually for twenty years, she was the association’s longest-serving president. In her role, MacMillan formalized their programming and increased their international standing. Under her leadership, the association grew from less than 100 members in Ontario to over 1,400 across the country.

Windfall Scandal

Viola MacMillan’s prominence came to a halt in the 1960s when she and George were indicted in the scandal surrounding the business dealings of their company, Windfall Oils and Mines, which dealt with mines around Timmins. The couple capitalized on a flurry of interest in the area after an American company discovered base metals in Kidd Creek, near Timmins. While a core sample taken from the Windfall claim land yielded no results, the MacMillans didn’t announce the findings for a month. In the meantime, Windfall stock rose from 31 cents to over $5 in two weeks. By the time they made the announcement, the stock price had crashed and the couple had netted over a million dollars.

The Ontario Securities Commission investigated their business dealings after the crash. After a four-year trial, Viola and Geroge were eventually acquitted of fraud. However, in a separate trial, MacMillan was found guilty of wash trading, a method of insider trading. MacMillan had bought and sold her own shares in Windfall to mimic a flurry of interest and activity in the company, manipulating the stock price. The Toronto Stock Exchange halted trading, but not before significant money had been lost by clients.

In 1967, she was sentenced to nine months in prison and a $10,000 fine. She served seven weeks before being released on parole. MacMillan was the first person in Canada to be convicted of wash trading, which was a common practice at the time. In 1978, she received a full pardon for her conviction. When MacMillan returned to the public eye after being pardoned, she was welcomed warmly back into the mining community and received several honours for her contributions to the industry.

Honours and Awards

• Life Member, Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (1978)
• Inductee, Canadian Mining Hall of Fame (1991)
• Member, Order of Canada (1992)

The Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada established the Viola R. MacMillan Award, awarded annually to recognize a leader in prospecting management and financing. The Viola MacMillan Mineral Gallery was established at the National Museum of Natural Sciences (now the Canadian Museum of Nature) to honour MacMillan’s $1.25 million donation of William Pinch’s collection of minerals.