It was founded in 1971 as a pressure group to lobby for the implementation of the 167 recommendations made in the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada's 1970 report[1] on matters such as day care, birth control, maternity leave, family law, education and pensions.

Its mandate grew beyond the implementation of the Royal Commission's recommendations to include issues such as poverty, racism, same-sex rights and violence against women.

[4] Although the committee's activities were greatly reduced through the 1990s into the 21st century, it revived and renewed itself and was primarily funded largely through donations and membership fees.

According to the NAC, which defined this principle at the International Perspectives: Women and Global Solidarity, "Anti-racism is the active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies and practices and attitudes, so that power is redistributed and shared equitably."

After the dissolution of the organization in 2007, medical researchers and influential Canadian collegiate professors, Dr. Charles Boelen, MD, MPH, MSc and Dr. Robert Woollard, MD were inspired by the work of the NAC and published several scholarly articles on anti-racism, essentially picking up where the NAC left off.