23 I Will Vote for That 1889
Canadians think it is very important to vote. They want to be able to say who they think should win an election and become a member of government. At first, Canadian women could not vote. This is the story of how some females changed that.
Canada has always had strong women. Women who left their childhood homes to travel across the country in a wagon. Women who could work in farm fields all day, then cook dinner and finally take care of the children at night. Women who could shoot a bear that tried to hurt their family. Women who could fight the government and win.
The Dominion Women's Enfranchisement Association (DWEA) was founded in 1889 to fight for the right of women to vote. At that time, only the male head of the household could vote in an election. The women in the DWEA said they should have a right to vote because they paid taxes and had new ideas to bring to the government.
Men thought that a woman's place was in the home. The DWEA thought that if women could think of good ideas and talk about them at the kitchen table, they should also be able to talk about these same good ideas to the government. However, the Canadian election law said that “No woman, idiot, lunatic, or criminal shall vote.”
Dr Emily Stowe and Dr Augusta Stowe(see 1883)were two of the founders of the DWEA. They had many years of practice fighting males who did not think highly of females. Emily was the first Canadian woman to work as a doctor in Canada. Her daughter, Augusta, was the first woman to graduate as a doctor from a Canadian university. The two had fought for the right for women to be doctors in Canada. They had been successful. Now they used this same strength to fight for every Canadian woman's right to vote.
It took another 71 years before all Canadian women in every province and territory had that right. In 1960, First Nations women were the last females to be able to vote. That fight started with the DWEA in Ontario. It spread throughout all of Canada. Every place in Canada had strong, female leaders who went to their government to ask for their rights in their own province or territory. In Manitoba, it was a female writer named Nellie McClung. In 1916, Manitoba became the first province to let women vote in their provincial elections. Slowly women started to win the fight.
FIVE STRONG WOMEN FOUGHT FOR THE RIGHT FOR ALL CANADIAN FEMALES TO VOTE
In 1917, during the First World War, women had to go to work because all the men were in other countries fighting. The government let some women vote that year in Canada-wide elections. They were the women who were working for the military and female family members of military men. One year later, the government said that all women over the age of 21 could vote in these Canada-wide elections. What the DWEA had started, was now growing.
This growing movement for women's rights had its biggest success with the “Person's Case” in 1929. It was perhaps the most important fight that Canadian females ever won. Five Canadian women came together to get the laws changed so women could become lawmakers.
The fight started with Emily Murphy. Emily was a lawyer. She was made a judge of a special court for women only. The first time she listened to a prisoner's story, Emily thought she was guilty and Emily said the prisoner had to go to jail. The prisoner's lawyer told Emily she had no right to do that because Emily was not legally a “person”. The law at that time said that only persons could be judges. The words of this law made it seem that maybe females were not persons.
Emily and Nellie McClung joined together to change this law. Nellie had helped women in Manitoba get the vote. Three other important women joined them: Irene Parlby, Louise McKinney, and Henrietta Muir Edwards. They became known as “The Famous Five”. All five women were important members of their community. Emily was a judge. Nellie, Irene, and Louise were members of the government. Henrietta was a writer and she was a leader of many big and strong groups.
These women asked if the government of Canada could make a female a lawmaker. They wanted the government to say in writing that a woman judge, like Emily, could make laws. The government of Canada talked about this question, but they could not agree on an answer. They found a law that said persons could make laws. They did not know if persons were males only or both males and females. They sent their question to a higher place-The Supreme Court of Canada.
The government of Canada asked the Supreme Court of Canada if the word persons included females. The judges in this court did not answer that question. Instead, they said that women could not be lawmakers. The question of whether a woman was a person by law was left unanswered.
The Famous Five had not become so well known by giving up when things were hard. They continued the fight. The Famous Five went to an even higher court. They went to Britain whose Queen could make all the last decisions for Canada. On October 29, 1929, this court said that women were persons. Now, women could be lawmakers in Canada.
The win of The Famous Five was a win for all women in Canada. Now females had another of the same legal rights as men. Canadian women had the right to get an education, to vote, to own land, to be leaders, and even to make laws.