October 10, 1995 - Christine Silverberg - a podcast by Stephen Hammond

Christine Silverberg becomes the first female police chief of a major Canadian city. Christine Silverberg became the first woman police chief of a major Canadian city when she was sworn in as Calgary’s chief of police on October 10, 1995. Born Christine Bertram in 1949 and raised on a dairy farm close to Brampton, Ontario, Bertram met her husband, Ben Silverberg, while studying at York University in Toronto. At the age of 21, Silverberg became one of the first women recruits at the Mississauga police department, where she soon rose through the ranks to deputy chief of the Hamilton-Wentworth, Ontario police department. When Silverberg left Ontario to take the top police job in Calgary, her appointment stirred controversy, not just because she was a woman, but because she had negotiated a salary that Calgary city councillors thought was too high. However, after five years on the job, Silverberg left the department with a much higher budget and hundreds more police officers than when she had started. As a woman and a Jew, Silverberg strongly advocated an inclusive police workforce. In fact, her efforts so impressed members of the Peigan Nation, that they fondly nicknamed her “Bluebird Lady” in 1998. After retiring from police work, Silverberg graduated from the University of Calgary law school in 2004, and launched her new career as a lawyer.

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