Viola MacMillan’s life, shaped by remarkable accomplishments and the gripping Windfall scandal that took place in the 1960s, forms the heart of Toronto-based author Tim Falconer’s latest book, Windfall: Viola MacMillan and Her Notorious Mining Scandal. 

Born in 1903 in Dee Bank, Ontario, MacMillan left school at the age of 12 to support her impoverished family, working as a cleaner with her mother. After the First World War, MacMillan returned to school and later moved to Windsor, Ontario, where she saved up money for business college by working as a telephone operator and live-in maid. After graduating, she was hired as a stenographer. 

Falconer wrote that MacMillan’s interest in mining was sparked by her brother’s stories of working in a mine in Cobalt, Ontario. During a 1922 visit to a silver mine in the area, the mine captain told MacMillan that it was bad luck for women to enter underground sites. Undeterred, she dressed in mining overalls and a man’s cap and persuaded him to allow her into the mine. In her autobiography, published posthumously in 2001, MacMillan reflected that the experience left her “completely hooked on the glamour of mining.” 

When she lived in Windsor, she met George MacMillan and married him in 1923. The couple spent 15 years prospecting across Canada. In 1933 Viola founded MacMillan Securities Limited to facilitate deals between prospectors and investors, sell mining company shares and establish syndicates.  

Through her company, she invested in several mining projects, with her most profitable being the Victor mine in British Columbia. She invested $50,000 in 1948, and by 1962, it had yielded over $9 million in silver, lead, zinc, cadmium and gold.  

In an interview with CIM Magazine, Falconer said he wanted to write a book about MacMillan’s story as he was not only impressed by her success as a businesswoman in mining, but also by her groundbreaking role as the first female and longest-serving president of the Ontario Prospectors and Developers Association (now the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada), a position she held for 21 years. During her leadership, MacMillan formalized the organization’s programming, boosted its international reputation and expanded its membership from under 100 members in Ontario to more than 1,400 across the country.  

The scandal that shook the Canadian mining industry  

In 1946, MacMillan and her husband founded Windward Gold Mines, which became Windfall Oils and Mines in 1957. In 1964, the couple became embroiled in scandal after manipulating stock prices by withholding negative results from a core sample, resulting in their company’s shares skyrocketing before crashing. Before it was over, they had pocketed over a million dollars.  

Although the couple was acquitted of fraud in the Windfall case, MacMillan was convicted of wash trading—a form of insider trading—in 1967 in a separate trial for selling shares of MacMillan Prospecting & Development Co. Ltd. to her husband, a form of insider trading, and sentenced to nine months in prison. She served seven weeks before being released on parole. Falconer noted in the book that, although wash trading was illegal, prosecutions of the crime at the time were rare and convictions even rarer. Though fully pardoned in 1978, MacMillan was the first person ever convicted of the offence in Canada. 

MacMillan’s multifaceted legacy 

The Windfall scandal had widespread repercussions, tarnishing personal reputations and unsettling both the mining and investment sectors. After the stock collapse, an investigation into Windfall Oils and Mines Limited was launched, leaving many investors, particularly smaller ones, feeling wronged and suspecting market manipulation. The OSC and the Toronto Stock Exchange were criticized for their lack of oversight, leading to calls for stricter regulatory measures.  

Additionally, a Royal Commission was established to probe the matter. In the end, the fallout increased skepticism about the stock market's integrity and fuelled efforts for stronger regulation to prevent similar events in the future. 

Following her pardon in 1978, MacMillan later reintegrated into the mining community, receiving several honours for her contributions, including being the first woman inducted into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame in 1991. She was recognized for her dedication to transforming the Prospectors and Developers Association and for her notable discoveries, including the Hallnor deposit in the Timmins area, which led to the development of the Canadian Arrow open-pit gold deposit.  

“She's just a great character, she was a really remarkable woman in mid-century Canada,” said Falconer. In the book, Falconer noted that by the age of 61, MacMillan had already achieved significant success and financial security, which begs the question of why she took the actions she did.  

Falconer, who has hands-on experience working at the Agnew Lake uranium mine in Ontario in 1978 and the United Keno silver mine in Yukon in 1979, recalled how prospectors often had a “gleam in their eyes” when discussing a discovery. He noted that, beyond money and success, there appeared to be something deeper at play in the scandal: As Falconer wrote in the book, MacMillan “couldn’t resist the excitement of a mining boom and she suffered from the prospector’s obsession with the big strike. So, it’s not hard to believe that some of her decisions stemmed from an inability to give up her dream of a major discovery.”  

Falconer said he hopes he has succeeded in capturing MacMillan as a remarkable, yet complex woman, who made a lasting impact on the Canadian mining industry. 

“Most people who have read the book say they end up liking her, which is good. Maybe she was the villain in the scandal, but she's not the villain of the book. I like to think [she] was a flawed hero, and that's the best kind of hero, right?” 

Windfall: Viola MacMillan and Her Notorious Mining Scandal was released on Feb. 18 and is available for purchase on Amazon and select bookstores including Indigo, Chapters and Barnes and Noble.