Information Sheet 2: Female Suffrage and the Persons Case



Information Sheet 2: Female Suffrage and the Persons Case

Information on this sheet has been gathered from The Famous 5, Heroes for Today website, a multimedia resource dedicated to chronicling the lives and achievements of the five visionary women from Alberta who have become known simply as the Famous 5.

1. Female Suffrage in Canada

The Success of the Female Suffrage Movement in Canada



Due to a number of factors, between 1914 and 1917, the female suffrage movement experienced rapid success in the four Western provinces and Ontario. Out of the women's associations formed in the late 19th century, emerged a suffrage movement that continued to gain momentum until women began to appear in the political and economic spheres. Combined with the moral and social atmosphere that developed during the First World War, women stepping into positions vacated by servicemen, expanding their role in the community, and politicians' growing awareness that their position on female suffrage could swing the vote in an election, worked together to speed the process of getting women the vote to its inevitable conclusion.

The men and women who belonged to suffrage societies tended to be members of the Anglo-Saxon Protestant middle-class. The leaders of these societies generally were highly educated professionals, or leaders of the Social Gospel Movement, and their goals tended toward the preservation of British essence and heritage in Canada. Nevertheless, the suffrage movement in Canada, with its emphasis on the virtues of motherhood and its general interest in strengthening the family—and thereby improving society—appealed to the larger reform movement within the young Dominion.

Female suffrage was largely seen as a means to an end, not an end in itself. To reformers, female suffrage was a means of achieving other social reforms—like prohibition, applied Christianity, child welfare, purity reform, and civic and education reform. To farm and labour groups, female suffrage was a means of increasing their political clout, and to politicians, adopting the suffrage cause was seen as a means of obtaining or maintaining political power.

Reasons Cited for Preventing Women From Voting



Many of the arguments against granting women the vote were based upon the belief that the public sphere was the rightful domain of men, and the private sphere, or home, was the appropriate domain of women. On the other hand, many of the arguments for giving women the vote were based on the belief that women were morally superior to men, and giving them the vote would result in an ideal world.

The following are some of the arguments raised against giving women the vote:

• A woman's place is in the home

• Politics are too corrupt for women

• Allowing women to vote will disrupt the home

• Women would vote with their husbands, so giving married women the vote would merely double the vote of married men

• Women would not vote if they had the privilege

• Women would vote too much

• Women can do more by indirect influence than by the ballot

• It is not "womanly" to express one's opinion in a straightforward fashion

• Women are too sentimental to vote

• Granting women the vote would give immigrant women the vote, increasing the uneducated vote. javascript:Dynapop(1,'images/site/voters_det.jpg','Group of women voters, Edmonton, Alberta, 1920', 2)

Some of the arguments for giving women the vote were:

• Women deserved the right to vote on the basis of their common humanity

• Women would vote for family-friendly legislation, such as:

o Prohibition

o Equal Wages

o Protection for women and children (Dower and Inheritance Laws)

o Equal custody

o Health care and education reform

• Would vote against war

Groups Who Promoted Female Suffrage



Church and women's groups, farmers' organizations, labour unions , and savvy politicians eventually joined together to work to achieve female suffrage—though each group had its own reasons for doing so.

As early as 1891, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) endorsed the enfranchisement of women—following an impassioned speech by prominent American suffragette Dr. Anna Howard Shaw. Although the movement's major goal was prohibition, those involved in the WCTU also crusaded for a variety of social and moral reforms. Official indifference to their efforts increased support within the movement for female suffrage, a response many women viewed as fuel for achieving other reform goals.

Founded by Lady Aberdeen in 1893, the National Council of Women of Canada (NCWC) was another organization that channeled the reforming zeal of missionary societies into the secular sphere. Although the NCWC did not officially endorse female suffrage until 1910, many suffrage groups became affiliated with it before then. As both Lady Aberdeen and the NCWC were held in very high esteem, this declaration gave the female suffrage movement a tremendous boost and an increased sense of respectability.

Farm and labour women, viewing suffrage organizations as urban and middle-class, preferred to work for the vote from within their own associations. Urban women could not be expected to have genuine interest or understanding of the problems faced by farmers and workers. javascript:Dynapop(1,'images/site/cartoon_suffrage_det.jpg','Cartoon on women/'s suffrage, February 26, 1913. Premier Scott of Saskatchewan stated that he was in favour of extending the franchise to women but did not care to enact the necessary legislation until the women asked for it. From the %22Grain Growers/' Guide%22.', 2)The organized farmer groups in the prairie provinces—the Saskatchewan and Manitoba Grain Growers and the United Farmers of Alberta—were early supporters of female suffrage in Canada. The farmers, alarmed by the disproportionate political influence exerted by the rapidly growing urban centers, looked at female suffrage as an opportunity to increase the strength of the farm vote. Thus, if rural women had a political voice, they could help implement the farmers' program. The Saskatchewan Grain Growers and the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) both passed resolutions in favor of woman suffrage in 1913, while the Manitoba Grain Growers' Association officially endorsed suffrage in 1911.

Like the farmers, labour groups saw female suffrage as a means to achieving their own political goals, and so threw their support behind female enfranchisement. Suffragists, for their part, courted the support of the labour movement, because they recognized that they could win powerful new allies and increase the suffrage movement's chances of success.

As women were forced to sell their labour cheaply, they undercut the entire labour market, lowering wages in general. Labour organizations were interested in the issue of equal wages, and believed that political recognition for women would ultimately solve the problem.

On the other hand, Labourites, who promoted independent labour politics based on the model of the British Labour Party, felt that if working class women had the vote, labour stood a better chance of electing working-class representatives to represent workers concerns before government.

Although suffragists viewed labour as a means to achieving their suffrage goals, they generally shared the anti-labour sentiment of the middle class. In fact, suffragists generally opposed strikes and unionization. For these reasons they pushed for reforms to remedy some of the more flagrant abuses of the industrial system, such as arbitration for trade disputes and workman's compensation.

Refusing to grant the vote to women after prohibitionists, Protestant churches, labour organizations, and farmer's organizations had taken the women's side could only be seen as political suicide.

In Ontario, British Columbia, and Manitoba, the suffrage movement had to combat hostile Conservative regimes, so suffragists formed alliances with the Liberal parties of their respective provinces. The Liberals recognized in the suffrage movement a strong block of potential political support and reaped the political rewards for doing so.

Western Provinces Give Women the Vote



Manitoba and British Columbia, the Conservative governments were openly hostile to the suffrage movement. As a result, the suffragists actively threw their weight behind the Liberal parties in important elections.

In 1914, when the Manitoba Liberals endorsed suffrage and made it a significant part of their campaign platform, the Women's Civic League, the Grain Grower's Guide, (published by the Manitoba Grain Grower's Association), and Nellie McClung all threw their weight behind the Liberals.

Despite their efforts, the Conservative government was reelected with a slim majority. The following year, a scandal regarding the construction of the new Parliament buildings toppled the Conservative government, resulting in another election. This time, T. C. Norris and his Liberal party received a commanding majority, despite the efforts of the Conservatives to make a comeback.

Norris had promised he passed a suffrage bill, which granted female suffrage and ensured that women could hold political office. On January 28, 1916, Manitoba became the first province in Canada to grant full political privileges to women.

Events in British Columbia followed a similar course. In 1913, Conservative Premier Richard McBride reiterated his long-standing refusal to support a suffrage bill, the suffragists changed their tactics from petitions and delegations to the government to an effort to overthrow the ruling Conservatives.

Hoping to capitalize on the suffragists' frustration, the Liberal party began to openly court the support of the suffrage forces—much to the alarm of the Conservatives. As the 1916 election drew near, the Premier offered to introduce a suffrage bill if female suffrage was endorsed in a referendum held during the 1916 election. But he refused to support a Socialist bill, which would have given women the vote prior to the election, further alienating suffrage forces. As a result, the Suffrage Referendum League threw its weight behind the Liberal party.

The Liberals won the election with a comfortable majority, and the suffrage referendum received an affirmative vote of more than two to one. Thus, on April 5, 1917, the women of British Columbia achieved political equality through a bill presented by the Liberal government.

Unlike the blatant government hostility faced by the suffrage movements in Manitoba and British Columbia, the governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan were friendlier to the suffrage cause. Information campaigns were launched by organizations like the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and the United Farm Women of Alberta (UFWA) to convert women to the suffrage cause, in the interests of achieving other social and moral reforms.

When petitions indicative of widespread support among both urban and rural populations were presented to the respective legislatures, the Liberal governments of both provinces were quick to grant women political equality.

In Alberta, Premier Sifton introduced a suffrage bill which provided women with complete political equality with men in all provincial, municipal and school matters. The law was amended to reflect these changes on April 19, 1916 and Nellie McClung campaigned for the Liberals in the 1917 elections.

Ottawa Follows Suit



Women achieved provincial suffrage in Manitoba (January 1916), Saskatchewan (March 1916), Alberta (April 1916), British Columbia (April 1917), and Ontario (April 1917). It was only a matter of time before the federal franchise followed—and it did, for some women, in 1917.

javascript:Dynapop(1,'images/site/voters_det.jpg','Group of women voters, Edmonton, Alberta, 1920', 2)On September 20, 1917, under the Wartime Elections Act, women in the armed forces or with military relatives were given the right to vote, while citizens of "enemy alien" birth were disenfranchised.

Between the time that women with military connections got the vote and May 24, 1918, when the Canada Elections Act gave all women over 21 the federal vote, women got the provincial vote in Nova Scotia (April 1918). A year later, women in New Brunswick were granted the provincial franchise.

Women in Prince Edward Island had to wait until May 3, 1922 before they were able to vote in provincial elections, and women in Newfoundland did not have that right until April 13, 1925.

Amazingly, women in Quebec had to wait until after the start of the Second World War to be granted the provincial vote, finally having that right acknowledged in 1940.

Election of the First MLA’s and MP’s



javascript:Dynapop(1,'images/site/parlby_statue_det.jpg','Detail of statue of Irene Parlby by Barbara Paterson, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa',8)

In the first election in which women were allowed to vote and run for office, two women were elected, fulfilling women's long-cherished dream of having a political voice. On June 7, 1917, Alberta's Louise McKinney and Roberta MacAdams became the first women elected to a provincial legislature. As Louise McKinney was sworn in first, she has the distinction of being the first female legislator elected in the British Empire.

Four years later, in 1921, Irene Parlby was appointed Minister without Portfolio in the United Farmer's government, thus becoming the first woman in Alberta (and the second woman in the British Empire) to serve as a cabinet minister. Around the same time, Nellie McClung was also elected to the Alberta Legislature, as a Liberal member. As members of different, and sometimes opposing parties, these women had the opportunity to meet in their province's political institutions. 

That same year, Agnes Macphail of Ontario became the first woman elected to the House of Commons.

Not until after the success of the Persons' Case did a woman make it into the highest chamber of Canada's House of Commons. In 1930, the honourable Cairine Wilson of Ontario became the first female senator in Canada—to the disappointment of many Albertans who had hoped to see Emily Murphy appointed.

2. The Persons Case

The Cause



Edmontonian Emily Murphy became the first female judge in the Commonwealth on January 1, 1916. On her first day in court and frequently thereafter, lawyers would begin their presentation by objecting to having their case heard by a woman judge because, they said, women were not "persons" as defined by the British North America Act of 1867.

Luckily for the women of Alberta, in 1917 the ruling by a Calgary judge, Alice Jamieson, was upheld by the Supreme Court of Alberta, thereby establishing the principle that both men and women were persons and therefore equals.

In other provinces and federally, women were still considered to be "persons only in terms of pains and penalties, and not rights and privileges" as defined by British Common Law. However, changes were advancing the equality of women. Nellie McClung had achieved a major breakthrough when the province of Manitoba became the first Canadian jurisdiction to grant women the right to vote and run for office on January 28, 1916. It was not until 1940 that women could participate in provincial elections in the province of Quebec, even though they could vote and run for office in federal elections. On May 24, 1918, women were given the right to vote in federal elections. However, Asian and Indo-Canadian men and women were not enfranchised federally until 1947, and in 1960, Aboriginal people were finally also accorded this right.

Emily Murphy wanted to become Canada's first female Senator. Members of the Federated Women's Institutes, the National Council of Women of Canada and the Montreal Women's Club were among the more than 500,000 citizens who signed petitions and wrote letters in support of her cause. Between 1917 and 1927, five governments indicated their support for such an appointment but said that their hands were tied because only "qualified persons" could be appointed and that definition did not include women. Two Prime Ministers promised to change the law but did not.

After more than 10 years of political effort, Murphy finally decided on a new strategy recommended by her brother. Section 60 of the Supreme Court of Canada act stated that any five citizens acting as a unit could appeal through the Federal Cabinet to the Supreme Court for clarification of a constitutional point. Thus the Famous 5 moniker was given to these women by the media when they requested that Prime Minister Mackenzie King and his Cabinet pose their query to the court concerning the process of being appointed to the Senate.

Judge Murphy invited four outstanding Alberta women to her home in Edmonton in late August 1927. They were Henrietta Muir Edwards, Louise McKinney, Irene Parlby, and Nellie McClung. Following in McClung's footsteps, Murphy, Edwards, McKinney, and Parlby had campaigned for the right of Alberta women to vote and Murphy, Edwards, and McKinney had succeeded in getting Alberta's Dower Act passed in 1917.

Although the Famous 5 proposed different questions, on March 14, 1928, Murphy's 60th birthday, the Supreme Court of Canada considered the following question: "Does the word 'persons' in Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867 include female persons?"

The Disappointment



Six weeks later, on April 24, 1928, the Supreme Court of Canada answered no, women were not yet to be recognized as persons by law.

The five male Justices stated that the British North America Act had to be interpreted in light of the times in which it was written. In 1867, women did not vote, run for office or serve as elected officials. Only male nouns and pronouns were used in the Act. As well, the British House of Lords did not have a woman member and therefore, the justices concluded Canada should not change this tradition.

The Victory



javascript:Dynapop(1,'images/site/gazette_det.jpg','Article in the Montreal Gazette, October 19, 1929', 1)With Prime Minister Mackenzie King's moral and financial support, the decision was appealed to what was at that time Canada's highest court of appeal, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of England.

October 18, 1929, Lord Sankey, Lord Chancellor of the five male member Privy Council, announced that "yes, women are persons . . . and eligible to be summoned and may become Members of the Senate of Canada."

The Reactions and Its Effects



This decision marks the abolition of sex in politics. . . . Personally I do not care whether or not women ever sit in the Senate, but we fought for the privilege for them to do so. We sought to establish the personal individuality of javascript:Dynapop(1,'images/site/edwards_statue_det.jpg','Detail of statue of Henrietta Muir Edwards by Barbara Paterson, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa', 8)women and this decision is the announcement of our victory. It has been an up-hill fight. —Henrietta Muir Edwards, 1929

Despite their fundamental role in obtaining the right of women to sit in the Canadian Senate, none of the Famous 5 were appointed to the governmental body. The first Senate vacancy that occurred after the Persons' Case was in Ontario. On February 20, 1928, Prime Minister Mackenzie King appointed Ottawa citizen Cairine Wilson, a remarkable woman who actively opposed anti-semitism and encouraged governments to accept refugees.

When a Senate vacancy occurred in Edmonton several years later, hopes were high that Emily Murphy, a Conservative, would be appointed because the Prime Minister was Calgarian R. B. Bennett, also a Conservative. Bennett felt it necessary to consider religious affiliations, and since the Senator from Southern Alberta was Protestant, Bennett decided that the Senator for Northern Alberta should be Catholic. Senator Patrick Burns, a Liberal, was appointed. Indeed, although Alberta women succeeded in opening the doors to the Senate for women, it was not until 1979, 50 years later, that Martha Beilish was appointed the first female Senator from Alberta by Prime Minister Joe Clark.

On December 17, 1997, Senator Gerald Beaudoin, a renowned constitutional expert, described the importance of the Persons' Case during Senate debates which concluded by approving a unanimous resolution concerning the placement of the "Women are Persons. . ." statues on Parliament Hill. Senator Beaudoin said, "I suggest in closing that we keep and remember the famous 1929 case that first recognized the equality of men and women. . . . This was [also] the time when the Privy Council started what we call in law, the theory of 'evolution of the Constitution."

Champions of the Persons' Case, the Famous 5 also secured the right for women to vote and serve as elected officials at the school board, hospital board, and at the municipal, provincial, and federal level. As the Senate is the senior law making body in Canada, these remarkable nation builders also sought the right for women to participate at this level. As well, they advocated for and assisted in the creation of libraries, travelling health clinics, distance education, mother's allowance, equal citizenship of mothers and fathers, prison reform, and many other initiatives that we cherish today.

Remembrance of the Persons Case

 

Book: The Persons Case: The Origins and Legacy of the Fight for Legal Personhood

Product Description from Amazon.ca: On 18 October 1929, John Sankey, England's reform-minded Lord Chancellor, ruled in the Persons case that women were eligible for appointment to Canada's Senate. Initiated by Edmonton judge Emily Murphy and four other activist women, the Persons case challenged the exclusion of women from Canada's upper house and the idea that the meaning of the constitution could not change with time. The Persons Case considers the case in its political and social context and examines the lives of the key players - Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, and the other members of the 'famous five,' the politicians who opposed the appointment of women, the lawyers who argued the case, and the judges who decided it.

Robert J. Sharpe and Patricia I. McMahon examine the Persons case as a pivotal moment in the struggle for women's rights and as one of the most important constitutional decisions in Canadian history. Lord Sankey's decision overruled the Supreme Court of Canada's judgment that the courts could not depart from the original intent of the framers of Canada's constitution in 1867. Describing the constitution as a 'living tree,' the decision led to a reassessment of the nature of the constitution itself. After the Persons case, it could no longer be viewed as fixed and unalterable, but had to be treated as a document that, in the words of Sankey, was in 'a continuous process of evolution.'

The Persons Case is a comprehensive study of this important event, examining the case itself, the ruling of the Privy Council, and the profound affect that it had on women's rights and the constitutional history of Canada.

Monument to the Persons Case on Parliament Hill

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Inaugurated on October 18, 2000, this monument entitled "Women are Persons!" is a tribute to Nellie McClung, Irene Parlby, Emily Murphy, Louise McKinney and Henrietta Muir Edwards. Known as the Famous Five, these women won the "Persons" Case, a 1929 court ruling which legally declared women as persons under the British North America Act and made them eligible for appointment to the Canadian Senate

The larger-than-life sculptures by Edmonton artist Barbara Paterson were donated to the Government of Canada by the Famous 5 Foundation. They show the five women celebrating their important legal victory in characteristic poses. An empty chair adds an interactive feature to the monument that invites passers-by to join the group. The newspaper with the headline "Women are Persons" that Nellie McClung is holding reflects some of the actual headlines of newspapers of the day.

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