CEVRO Institute
MASTER´S THESIS
Bc. Anita Culíková
Prague, 2019
CEVRO Institute
THE DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN´S VOTING RIGHTS IN CANADA
Bc. Anita Culíková
PPE - Philosophy, Politics, Economics
Thesis Advisor: PhDr. Petr Sokol, Ph.D.
Master´s Thesis
Prague, 2019
I would like to thank my mentor PhDr. Petr Sokol, Ph.D. for his professional attitude; patience and willingness to help, and Prof. Joan Sangster for advice which helped evaluate this diploma thesis.
Abstract
This thesis focuses on the development of women's voting rights in Canada, suffrage organizations and associations, and within that the concept of women as a person under the law. The thesis includes the franchise of women; newcomers legally regarded as Canadians and Indigenous peoples. It explains the expanse of feminism and liberal ideas within liberal feminism that included women´s voting rights, and economics and politics of women´s rights. The history of suffrage in
Canada includes the provincial and federal development in Canada with a unique extension of the case of Quebec. Women's voting rights and its enlargement have encountered several problems such as ignorance, religion, racism, and the act that has not included women among persons. The work relates directly to these issues.
Keywords: women in Canada, suffrage in Canada, feminism, economics and politics of suffrage, Canada, political rights, Indigenous peoples, person case, voting rights,
Obsah
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ...... 1
INTRODUCTION ...... 2
1 Feminism ...... 5
1.1 Modern Western History of Feminism ...... 6
1.1.1 First Wave of Feminism ...... 7
1.1.2 Second Wave of Feminism ...... 8
1.2 A Classification of Feminist Theories ...... 10
1.2.1 Gender Reform Feminism ...... 11
1.2.2 Gender Resistance Feminism ...... 14
1.2.3 Gender Rebellion Feminism ...... 15
1.3 The Positive Influence of Feminism in Society ...... 16
2 The Economics and Politics of Women´s Rights ...... 18
2.1 The Political Development of Expanding Women´s Rights ...... 18
2.2 The Economics of Suffrage ...... 23
2.2.1 Different Voting Preferences ...... 24
2.3 Quotas for Female Politicians ...... 25
2.3.1 The Advantages and Disadvantages of Electoral Quotas ...... 26
3 History of Suffrage in Canada ...... 27
3.1 English-Canadian Suffragists Society ...... 28
3.2 The Struggle before Suffrage Movement ...... 31
3.3 The First Wave of Feminism in Canada ...... 34
3.3.1 The Impact of the Woman´s Christian Temperance Union ...... 37
3.3.2 The First Women´s Suffrage Club Organizations in Canada ...... 39
3.3.3 Raising Women´s Suffrage and the National Council of Women ... 41
3.3.4 Women and the Voting Rights in the Pre-War during War-time .... 45
3.3.5 The Universal Franchise ...... 54
3.4 The First Federal Election ...... 56
3.5 Voting Rights in the Last Provinces ...... 57
3.5.1 Women´s Suffrage in Atlantic ...... 58
4 The Case Edward v Canada ...... 62
4.1 The Background of the Case ...... 62
4.2 Famous 5 ...... 65
4.3 The Path of the Struggle for Legislative Change ...... 67
5 The Suffrage Movement in Quebec ...... 71
5.1 The Women´s Position before the Dominion Election Act ...... 72
5.2 Women´s Suffrage in Quebec after Federation Franchise ...... 75
6 The Franchise of Indigenous Peoples ...... 80
6.1 The Legislative Recognitions of Aboriginal Peoples ...... 80
6.1.1 The Indian Act ...... 81
6.1.2 The Legislative Changes after Franchise ...... 82
6.2 Aboriginal Peoples and the Franchise ...... 84
6.2.1 Background of Following Events ...... 84
6.2.2 Provincial Enfranchise ...... 89
6.3 Rights of Aboriginal Women ...... 89
7 Conclusion ...... 92
References ...... 96
Books and Publications ...... 96
Website Reference List ...... 98
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
BNA Act British North America Act of 1867
CWSA Canadian Women´s Suffrage Association
FNSJB Fédération nationale Saint-Jean-Baptiste
MLA Master of Liberal Arts
NCWC National Council of Women of Canada
PEI Prince Edward Island
PEL Political Equality League
UN United Nations
WCTU Woman's Christian Temperance Union
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INTRODUCTION
Voting rights are part of the broad universal rights of citizenship, which meets the conditions for participation. In today's world, the western countries present the elemental model of participation in elections within equal voting rights between sexes. However, the conditions for their fulfilment were multiple occasions discriminated against gender. The advantages of civilization and culture of individual states eliminated these barriers and gradually achieved a legally fair society in which everyone has equal opportunities in public participation. Canada belongs to the former western state with significant democratic values which were not always presented during the development of liberal society within a constitutional monarchy.
Canada is one of the states of the former French and British colonies that later joined the British Empire. Canada political system belongs to a nation with a political form of a constitutional monarchy headed by Elizabeth II, Queen of Great
Britain, represented by the Governor-General. Canada is also a representative parliamentary democracy with a federal structure and strong democratic traditions represented by its provinces.
The Canadian Parliament is constituted by two chambers, the representatives of the Parliament, the House of Commons, and the appointed Senate. The majority electoral system elects each member of the House of Commons. The Governor-
General issues general Elections at the request of the Prime Minister. Members of the Senate, whose seats are allocated on a regional basis, are selected by the Prime
Minister and formally appointed by the Governor-General.
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Canada is composed of ten provinces and three territories. The provinces are responsible for most of the welfare social programs in Canada (health care, Canada's education system) and collectively concentrate more funds than the federal government. The level of financial and autonomous sovereignty is very high within the provinces. The federal government and its administration initiatives interfering with the governments of the provinces, but cannot persuade law due to the high autonomy of the provinces. At the same time, every province has a Lieutenant-
Governor who represents the Crown and is the Governor-General's parallel at the federal level.
This whole position of political representation in Canada has also resulted in several years of effort from citizens of individual provinces to grant voting rights.
In this conflict and struggle, the initial Liberal Feminism, which combines with nationalism and maternal feminism in Canada, and is the power of it, plays a significant role. The drive in the struggle for the suffrage recognizes the essence of women mainly as mothers. However, based on maternal feminism, along with liberal values, Canadian society is also pursuing a nationalism that combines only
Canadian society, which generates conflict between races.
The research tries to understand and answer the critical questions of suffrage; how far and how the Canadian Society has gone through to acquire women's voting rights, including the Indigenous Peoples. Were the practices of individual women's rights organizations radical, as in the UK, or formed in a similar way to the United States, as public demonstrations? What was the status position of political parties for women´s legal liberation? What were the goals of women in politics, active political participation, or merely the admission of legal rights?
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Lastly, from today's perspective, it can be said that the late granting of electoral rights to Indigenous peoples can be considered partly as racial discrimination? Has racial segregation manifested itself in the struggle for women's electoral rights?
The thesis has two parts, the theoretical part, which analyzes the information that refers to the practical part. The theoretical part deals with feminism and its divisions based on political theories, directions from Liberal to Marxist, which presents the different approaches of thoughts and attitudes towards the political situation resulting from the problems between the gender and its subsequent solution. The theoretical part also presents the economic and political aspect of the struggle of suffrage and equal rights between men and women who resonate in society. The historical expansion of liberal ideas and equal voting rights for women has taken hold in many states in a different period. The aim of this thesis is a historical analysis of suffrage in Canada.
In the practical part, the thesis deals with the historical development of the liberal thoughts, voting rights, and women suffrage in Canada, which was entirely positive for the society and its development, but was not equal and overlooked some parts of the societies in the nation from the beginning. With the help of special professional publications dealing with feminism, economic and political suffrage, history and social development in Canada, as well as the development of suffrage associations in Canada, the research comes to a comprehensive view of the development of women's voting rights in Canada, which is still not uniformly described. The thesis includes the individual points of the past that shape the entire progress and development of society in the view of the political situation of
Canada.
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1 Feminism
Feminism is a relatively new word which was used for the first time in the 1880s in France as féminisme. This word has been referred to as political ideology and new social movements in society. Before the introduction of the word feminism, it was a conflict over political women rights movement.
Feminism is a philosophy, social movement, political movement and ideology associated with the struggle of women for equality. Feminism is not a single issue, but rather it is more appropriate to talk about feminism in a number of different types. This problem is a diversified direction, and the requirements of individual types and ways of feminism can also oppose each other. It reacts to the disadvantage of women towards men, and within this context it develops strategies to strengthen the position of women in society, thereby achieving equal opportunities. There is also no consensus on how to understand the notion of equality. The feminist movement is beginning to develop at the time of transition from traditional society to modern society. This progress is associated with advances in human knowledge and increase people's living standards.
According to Judith Lorber, feminism is a social movement that's the goal is to raise women status and to eliminate social relations, characterized by the predominant role of the man in the economy, society and family (Lorber, 2001).
Feminist theory adopts the name of the patriarchate for this disadvantageous position of women. Feminism criticizes and questions the current practices that are perceived as natural and usual in different societies.
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The distinct position of men and women in society creates prerequisites for the existence of feminist conceived social sciences. The feminist critique of traditional social sciences is based on the view that the current theories are only or primarily the work of men, and are therefore unilateral and concerned. These are theories explaining only those aspects of social reality that are problematic for men. The models thus developed are considered by feminists to be unrepresentative; deny their claim to universal validity because they do not contain women's views and observations reflecting a different social experience. The purpose of feminist theory is to describe the causes of discrimination against women in individual social spheres, thereby contributing to the elimination of this discrimination.
1.1 Modern Western History of Feminism
The meaning of feminism, the term "women's movement", which seeks to improve the position of women within a society in all areas of public and private lives, is linked to election rights, right for education opportunities and the property rights.
In the past two centuries, this revolution has transformed many lives and societies, especially women´s lives. Based on all these requirements it was a necessity of freedom, which in modern philosophy always meant to be the master of its own life. Unlike the national revolution, this social upheaval crosses the European continent for decades within feminist ideologies. Especially in some states, for instance, England armed conflicts run by suffragettes and their adherents were taking place for women's rights. These dynamic elements of feminism, which are often termed as terrorism to the state and society, were replaced by a constructive discussion on the issue of equivalence between the men and women the law of the
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state (Freedman, 2007). According to Estelle Freedman, feminist revolution is related to historical transitions; the first, the rise of capitalism and economic opportunities. The second,”…, new political theories of individual rights and representative government that developed alongside capitalism extended privileges to men only (Freedman, 2007).” These circumstances have led to the reaction of the feminist movement, which has identified the facts mentioned above as unfair and has taken on economic justice as well as on legal justice. To summarize, worlds market economies and democratic political systems that are now leading the world and are in dominative position dominate, create both the need for feminism and the reasoning to sustain it. (Freedman, 2007).
1.1.1 First Wave of Feminism
The first wave of feminism had been seen as a period from the 18th century to the early 20th century. However, the significant emancipation of women occurred during the French Revolution, which burst in 1789 and contributed to history with the famous Declaration of Human Rights and also the American Revolution between 1775 and 1783.
The first wave of feminism aimed to achieve property rights, the right to education and, last but not least, the right to vote. It can be characterized as a critique of inequality, and therefore a struggle for fundamental human rights and women's rights. This process of equal rights for women has been linked to the formation of modern states; the more modern the state, the more national movements and the efforts to equalize it. Feminism started in states where capitalism, industrial and economic growth within democracy and socialist
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critiques converged. In the context of economic, social and political changes in the mid-nineteenth century, women began to experience emancipation more intensely and act in its spirit; the main issues that the women's movement, after
1860, mainly dealt with included the issues of legal reform, women's access to education and employment, and women´s political franchise. According to
Freedmen, “The old feminist calls for economic and political equality, and a new emphasis on control over reproduction, resonated deeply across generations, classes, and races” (Freedman, 2007).
One of the most significant people, who have dealt with the status and roles of women in society include the English thinker John Stuart Mill. In the Parliament during his term at the office, Mill defended the interests of women and advocated, giving women the right to vote as chairman of the Women's Election Committee.
According to Mill´s work on The Subjection of Women (1869); he dealt with the status of women in England, which, in his view, arose from a tradition. Mill compares the situation of women to the situation of slaves and servants. It is this position that prevents the development of their abilities and character, thus supporting their subordinate role (Mill, 1869).
1.1.2 Second Wave of Feminism
The second wave feminism first appeared during the early '60s in the 20th century in the United States of America, and soon took over control of the whole Western civilization. However, the second wave of feminism had small inceptions before this era from women who tried to improve the position of women in society. The example of this is the book by Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, brought the idea that women are relative to men; thus women do not participate in society.
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This book consists a large number of philosophical, psychological, anthropological and historical materials that De Beauvoir had come to discover that women's liberty did not stem from biology, politics or economic situations, but stemmed from the whole process of so-called femininity in society. And all the areas mentioned above are in the process participate in another word it is all about nurture and education (De Beauvoir, 1953). However, “.., women take this position because it has certain advantages for them, on the other hand, they also suffer because of this subordinate position” (De Beauvoir, 1953). All the points mentioned above show the importance of the theories that the Second Sex gave to the next generation of feminist thinking.
The second wave of feminism was closely linked to the struggle of human rights and, in particular, for national, racial and minority rights. One of the foundations of the second wave was, therefore, the struggle for the rights of African-
Americans, who were often associated with student radicalism. Many women were increasingly displeased at the actual level of equality that existed in society and which did not even match the formal legal guarantees that women had officially acquired decades ago. Although a variety of factors have certainly contributed to the renaissance of feminism, at least in part, it was the reflection of this anguish over their real status and dissatisfaction. The second wave of feminism was the answer of the disappointed part of society, which was no longer sufficient enough after the first wave of feminism, but called for equal rights in employment, public life and personal private life, especially in the area of realization and opening the door from the household duties, which was seen as the primary duty.
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The second wave of feminism took on its leading form after 1968, in connection with the hippie movement. The bulk of the program was anti-burglary, consistently rejecting the model of family life behind closed doors. Part of this attitude was the requirement for women to decide for themselves. The main motives of feminists of the second wave have become problems of the national violence, childcare and rape problems. One of the slogans that have fallen into the subconscious of the company is "The personal and political" (Ginsberg, 2008), which means combining personal life experiences with social and political platforms and thus the associated problems with the classic family model of the time of the nuclear family, which were influenced by welfare state policy and regulations (Harutyunyan, Hörschelmann & Miles, 2009).
1.2 A Classification of Feminist Theories
Feminist theory tends to be classified differently. On the one hand, these classifications depend on the thematic distribution of this theory; in terms of the identification of problems in the relationships between men and women, and on the other hand, the proposed ways of solving; according to the methodology used.
The primary ideological waves of feminism in political theory are liberal, radical and socialist (or Marxist) feminism. The division in case of the theory of feminism in international relations is divided into feminist empiricism, feminist opinion and feminist postmodernism Professor of Political Science Sandra Whitworth divides feminist theory of international relations into a liberal, radical and postmodern, combining the thematic mentioned above and methodological divisions (Whitworth,
1994). From the other point of view, Professor Rob Walker presents as examples
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of the classification of feminist theory of division into social, liberal and radical; alternatively, empiricism, opinion, and poststructuralism (postmodernism) (Walker,
1992).
Since all classifications are simplifying, and serve in a particular way to orientate the description of the problem, it is challenging to capture the uniform rigid classification of feminist theory. This difficulty results mainly from the absence of one single feminist perspective. A sociologist Judith Lorber created one of the most well-known divisions of feminism views. In her book Gender Inequality:
Feminist Theories and Politics, parts II to IV, Judith Lorber distinguishes three types of feminist theories; Gender reform feminism, Gender resistance feminism, and Gender rebellion feminism (Lorber, 2001). The author establishes specific directions of feminism according to particular demands, and their course and way of advocating in society.
Based on the findings mentioned above, it is possible to provide a methodological division of feminism into these categories: Radical feminism, Marxist feminism,
Postmodern feminism and Liberal feminism.
1.2.1 Gender Reform Feminism
This division of feminism includes directions that highlight the similarities between women and men and attempt to provide the same opportunities for participation of men and women in society. This group includes the directions of Liberal feminism,
Marxist-Socialist feminism and Third World feminism.
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Liberal feminism has, since its inception, sought to achieve the same rights and individual freedoms within both sexes. Liberal feminism is based on liberal political theory thus continuing to demand fair opportunities of equal conditions and rights for men and women especially in public life (Hooks, 2000). One of their main arguments for why societies view women as less able in certain areas is fact based on education, nurture and traditions in a society which, however, must be eliminated over time, thus to achieve individual independence and gender equality without prejudice to others. It is only then that particular gender will be independent and women will not live in the patriarchal state of society (Bryson,
1999). Their activities are focused on education, the labor market and public policy within the balanced representation of men and women in public and society.
They are thinking about the benefits of a higher proportion of women in a given area of society, as well as the benefits that a given area will have for women and their impact on their position in society (Whitworth, 1997). To increase the number of women, liberal feminists propose actions such as quotas or positive actions that directly guarantee a place in the area especially in public policy area that is the key to promoting women's needs and interests. Propose changes in the drafting of political parties' candidate lists as male and female experience are seen as mutually indispensable and beneficial. Liberal feminism prefers a gradual reform before the radical revolution and is particularly committed to changing laws. Within the liberal current, they believe that no state or higher authority has powers to deny fundamental rights and freedoms to any individual.
According to Marxist and Socialist feminist, the cause of the unequal status of women is their economic dependence on men. It transforms Marx's critique of
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capitalist oppression and applies it to the position of women. Marxist feminism considers the fight against patriarchy to be part of class struggle, Socialist feminism claims, that patriarchy and capitalism are interconnected and demanded a world anti-patriarchal revolution (Buchanan, 2011). The difference between
Marxist and Socialist feminism is that Marxist feminism considers the class as a source of oppression, whereas socialist accuse gender affiliation. Otherwise, these two directions are similar in their demands and opinions: Marxist and Socialist feminists want better economic opportunities for women and equality in the labor market with equal working conditions (Haraway, 1990). Feminists draw attention to the unequal distribution of roles in the family and the so-called second shift, which begins when women come home after work. According to these feminist, it is not just gender stereotypes for women to do homework and childcare, but also the interests of capitalist society.
Postcolonial feminism also known as Third World feminism focuses on the specific interests of women in economically developing countries. The ideas of the liberal and socialist feminist directions intertwine. However, the Third World feminism is mostly based on the combination of Marxist feminism and postmodernism.
From the Marxist perspectives, it analyzes the influence of capitalism on women.
Nevertheless, from the concept of Liberal feminism, this direction perceives an essential attitude towards equal opportunities in society between man and woman in the education sphere and the participation of women in public life. On the other hand, the Third World feminism is mainly affected by postmodernism, which criticizes the existence of universal truths and claims that truth is always relative, and science always subjective. The Third World feminism way discourages
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attempts to create theories that will always apply, everywhere, and for all the same as postmodernism. The concept of Postcolonial feminism theory is different in many countries depending on living conditions and cultural values (Jayawardena,
2016). This theory could be brought from Western economically developed countries, which is heavily criticized, or it can directly emerge within society in a particular place out of Third World countries with specific values of the domestic culture
(Crowley, 2014). For women from developing countries, it is crucial to try and achieve livelihood especially in places where local culture violates the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. This type of feminism has to, therefore, adapt to the living and social condition in developing countries. However, due to simple reasons is often neglected because of many problems like famine and the lack of medication which are the priorities in underdeveloped countries (Narayan, 2013).
1.2.2 Gender Resistance Feminism
Within this classification of specific directions of feminism, it is possible to assign to this group of theories, on the basis of which claim that the public sphere and the laws are influenced by domination, can exist in all spheres of society. These directions examine individual differences in behavior and thinking between man and woman (Lorber, 2007).
Radical feminism sees the fundamental power relationship in human society in the sexist domination of men over women. It has been part of society debates since the second-wave feminism in the 1960s (Willis, 1984). From radical feminists, the goal of feminism is to remove this hierarchy or overturn all structures of male social and personal privileges, and power since all the hierarchical systems have
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been ruled and shaped by men. According to these feminist, all the ways of power in society are entirely in the hands of men (Oates-Indruchová, 1998). The main element of patriarchy is a relationship of dominance by men, where methods of controlling to keep women suppressed have been used. The basis of this theory is to attempt to define women so that it is not necessary to apply this definition to a men's definition. Radical feminism calls for a change in social relationships; women´s qualities are considered to be superior to male qualities (Crow, 2000).
However, the problem with radical feminism is its unilateralism, which is the same as a unilateral preference for traditionally male qualities. This problem leads to unequal and not the same human rights status for men and women in society
(Willis, 1984).
1.2.3 Gender Rebellion Feminism
The further type of feminism that gives attention to the mutual relationships between inequalities based on gender, race, ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation
(Lorber, 2001).
Postmodern feminism is developed within so-called French feminism. According to postmodern feminists, the hierarchy in society is based on the so-called dichotomous vision of the world. This vision means that one tends to create opposing signs of reality, such as night and day, right and left, and then highlights.
For feminists, the dichotomy of the male and female categories becomes the basis of criticism. This point of view starts from Lacan's psychoanalysis which devotes
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to the philosophy of language (Grosz, 2002).1 Language not only denotes fact but also influences the way we perceive, think and evaluate reality. Equality of women, according to them, can be achieved when the discriminating language is removed. What importance is attached to it depends on the social conditions in which we live concerning the historical context? Man and woman, according to feminists, are artificially created categories, which serves to maintain hierarchical relationships by simplifying and stereotyping male and female identity and suppressing individuality. Gender is part of individual identity as well as other characteristics. Gender, according to feminists, has a more significant influence on the behavior of an individual than nurture, yet they do not question the biological sex identity. The identity of man and woman is therefore unchanging.
However, according to postmodern feminists, women's inequality is based on biological factors.
1.3 The Positive Influence of Feminism in Society
The concept of feminism had an approach to many societies across the world, and its benefits created a better society of equal rights and law policy. Feminism explains the inequality between men and women which can take many forms within the economic structure and social organization of a particular society and on the culture of any particular group within that society. This argument of inequality was mainly devoted by liberal feminism, which was based on the ideas of liberalism theory, and the equal status of women was justified by, for example,
1 Jacques Lacan was a French psychoanalyst. His studies point to the unconscious connection between language and the unconscious view of language to the individual. In other words, we all have our own order of acquiring language and understanding, which is given from birth and is developed by culture and society.
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the principle of individualism. Liberalists were therefore convinced that the most important is an individual, and each person has the right to access to public life and the right to participate in it. Liberal feminists argued that all people are the same and have the same inalienable natural rights. The equal rights of women were also promoted for the benefit of society as a whole, which corresponds to the theory of utilitarianism developed by liberalism. For these reasons, feminists wanted to end discrimination against women by giving them the same rights and all the opportunities that belong to them as human beings.
This thesis includes ideas of liberal feminism, which, as mentioned above, include a program of equal voting rights, equality before the law and equal opportunities between the genders.
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2 The Economics and Politics of Women´s Rights
Around two hundred years ago, women had no political rights, and in many countries, they were considered as the property of men. That meant no ownership of property, no sign of any legal contract, no control over their body and life, no access to voting or be elected, and no legal way to end their marriage or be part of life their children after a marriage separation. Historical expansion of women´s rights unfolded through different and separate stages, where first occur fundamental economic rights, after political rights, and last equality in the labor market followed by more significant control of women´s body and behavior in their life.
In consideration of political rights (suffrage): the right to vote and to run for public office, the average year in high-income states in admitting the women suffrage was 1919 (Doepke, Tertilt & Voena, 2011). On the contrary, the average low-income country expanded suffrage in 1957 (Doepke, Tertilt & Voena, 2011).
This move of society has been related to the political process in the percentage of the seats held by women in parliament. The correlation of seat between low income and high-income countries is significant in the numbers of percentage, where high-income states share 21.3 percent of seats with women in parliament
(Doepke, Tertilt & Voena, 2011).
2.1 The Political Development of Expanding Women´s Rights
During the explosion of natural rights in the 18th century in the Age of Enlightenment, defined by John Locke or Jean-Jacques Rousseau, people started to believe in the
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cultural society changes and later women´s movement which was changing attitudes about gender equality.
From this perspective, gender equality movement as women´s movement, mainly for their natural rights and especially after known for political rights, emphasizes the role of the women´s movement and its ultimate power to change legislation to support women´s right. This point was not only a victory for women, but everyone in society under slavery, and people with different skin colors. However, female emancipation within social changes in the Age of Enlightenment was vehemently opposed by some philosophers that were, generally, in favor of social changes. Rousseau and Kant were examples of philosophers that were against female education. Rousseau´s famous literary work Emile had an outstanding influence on thinking about education, same as The Social Contract was significant work on thinking about political life and organization within society. In his book
Emile, he did not see women as equal partners in the sense of equality. For
Rousseau, women were weaker and less rational than men, which led to their dependency on them and that was in correlation with their primary purpose in life; be wife and mother. “On the good constitution of mothers depends primarily that of the children; on the care of women depends the early education of men; and on women, again, depend their morals, their passions, their tastes, their pleasures, and even their happiness. Thus the whole education of women ought to be relative to men. To please them, to be useful to them, to make themselves loved and honored by them, to educate them when young, to care for them when grown, to council them, to console them, and to make life agreeable and sweet to them -- these are the duties of women at all times, and should be taught them from their
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infancy” Rousseau, 1817). According to Rousseau, in this part of the role in life, no significant, challenging, discerning, sophisticated education is needed.
However, despite the disadvantaged position of women in society in education, cultural changes in the behavior of society and individuals have had an impact on the economy and later on the political situation in which society has demanded more participation for women. Women's attitudes have shaped these changes in society's culture. According to Fernández, Fogli and Olivetti (2004), children are already developing attitudes towards women's work. Future men who grow up in an environment where their mother/woman is actively working have a broader horizon that makes them look for partners who are also working. Their relationship to the female workforce becomes positive, and the more they seek it.
The labor market and the number of women involved in it are therefore in direct correlation with the future society's attitude towards women's employment. Thus, this cultural and social development leads to a proportional increase in women's participation in the labor market. However, cultural changes are not in direct relationship with political reforms and are not the main driving force of political change; more than that the ultimate causes of political reforms were the economic shifts that altered attitudes towards women during cultural transmission (Doepke,
Tertilt & Voena, 2011).
Doepke (2009) and Geddes (2002) wrote research papers, where try to argue and convince the fact, that in general, technological changes were responsible for the extension of economic rights to women during the 19th century. According to the work of Geddes and Lueck (2002), the expansion of women rights is connected to increasing labor market opportunities for women, by men´s motivation to the
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maximization of consumption and provision. To endow women with economic rights, families gained higher earnings and became better off. This situation was more suitable and convenient for lower-income families who were the majority in societies and for the future labor force of married women. Bertocchi (2011) deals with a similar situation which includes thoughts and experience from the labor market. The core of the problem this time lies in the tax rates for women and men since the gap between men's, and women's income is visible and problematic.
When the difference between gender tax incomes becomes smaller, by increasing women´s wages, men have likely to tend to give a women´s right, since they do not feel disadvantaged (Doepke & Tertilt, 2009).
On the other hand, Doepke and Tertilt (2009) are convinced that daughters and their future were the main reason for men´s political preferences and principal argument for new political changes when the return to human capital increases.
The mechanism in Doepke and Tertilt (2009), “relates to women´s role in the education of children rather than the labor market. By empowering women, men can improve the welfare of their daughters (at the expense of the sons-in-law) and ensure a better education for their grandchildren” (Doepke, Tertilt & Voena,
2011). The point of the whole idea of this argument lies in the interest of preserving the family's heritage, which in the case of a daughter passes to her husband. This fact, when a couple has one or two children, especially, changes and the future property of her pass into her husband's hands. Thus, after marriage, the woman loses all her rights to her original property. According to a study by
Doepke and Tertilt (2009), which focuses on the foundation of women's economic rights in the 19th century in the US and the UK, the result is primarily a
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compromise between husband's desire and father's vision. Since every women´s right has improved their bargaining positions in society and primarily households, from a husband's perspective, a woman should have minimal rights. From that point of view, this was an example of patriarchy without any technological advantages which allowed increased human capital and increased need for education for women.
In contrast, in society with high human capital, people desire to devote their future with an education. This situation leads to legal rights and empowering women.
“From the perspective of a male voter, the tradeoff is between higher own consumption (under patriarchy) and higher well-being of daughters as well as faster accumulation of human capital (under empowerment)” (Doepke, Tertilt &
Voena, 2011). Formally, Doepke and Tertilt demonstrate that a progressive increase in education drives to an endogenous transition from patriarchy to empowerment. The first effect of a rise, it is that education rises and natality starts to fall. Ultimately, accept the situation and return to education is sufficiently high for men to vote for empowerment because men are willing to give up patriarchy only if the demand for human capital is high. The development of empowerment causes these trends: low natality and another education, which lead to women’s rights and a further increase in the growth rate of human capital and output. The
United States is cited as an example of the outcome of the whole process as, at the beginning of the 19th century in the States to the turn of the 20th century, the total natality rate declined from close to seven children to around 2.5 children (Doepke,
Tertilt & Voena, 2011). The side fact was that the primary school enrollment rate increased from less than 50 percent to dramatic 100 percent in that time (Doepke,
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Tertilt & Voena, 2011). The expansion of legal rights took place right in the middle of these transitions. However, even with increasing women´s rights and their education, there were not many options for unmarried women and their economic independence (Doepke, Tertilt & Voena, 2011).
Evidence that explains the change in society's behavior and its helpfulness to these changes can be found in the historical context of the time in states that have supported the change of women's rights. One relevant country is the United States, which also demonstrates that higher population concentrations, education for women, and wealth play a role in granting property rights (Doepke, Tertilt &
Voena, 2011). (Khan, 2005) According to Fernandez (2009), natality in society also plays a role. The smaller the natality, the higher the possibility of granting rights to women.
2.2 The Economics of Suffrage
Extending the suffrage has resulted in a change in legislative behavior. Empirical evidence shows that women´s electorate is the cause of increasing public spending across the range of social programs and public health (Lott & Kenny, 1999). This effect was observed in the United States, where public spending surged by an increase of 24 percent (Lott & Kenny, 1999). Besides, empirical evidence implies that not only the structure but also the total amount of public spending was affected: the electoral behavior of women coincides with a more liberal perception of the electoral model, which focuses on the aforementioned social problems and thus correlates with the rise in government spending (Lott & Kenny, 1999).
However, these extensions should not be confused with deliberate increases in
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government spending and overall bureaucracy with a balanced and accountable social care and health care program that has been neglected. Women, therefore, did not cause a direct increase in government spending as their intention but, on the contrary with their policy, they seek to balance and point out shortcomings in public health provision, equal gender rights, environmental issues and social security rather than military and other fields which are not familiar (Lott &
Kenny, 1999).
2.2.1 Different Voting Preferences
Reasons why women vote differently and understand the political situation from a different angle than men can be many, and therefore, the question of why women vote differently than men is in place. The two main arguments why women have a different voting preference are the natural behavior of women, as well as one of the measurable arguments of the different economic conditions.
The first argument deals with the difference of preferences and especially in the social sphere of life as it is; health care, public care and childcare as well as education. The second argument is the difference in economic income between the two sexes. Women face different economic incomes and working conditions than men. This fact of complex economic circumstances may lead to a hypothesis of demand for women's interest in social security programs. The enfranchisement of women would then increase government spending: as the income of the decisive voter falls relative to the mean, women support more governmental redistribution (Abrams & Settle, 1999).
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2.3 Quotas for Female Politicians
Over 20-30 years, there is a strong demand for new tools that can break male dominance in political life. One of the tools is electoral gender quotas; women’s political rights come from experiments that instituted quotas for female politicians. This mechanism for promoting the political participation of subordinate groups is the adoption of electoral quotas (Doepke, Tertilt & Voena,
2011). Quotas law demands a certain percentage of electoral candidates for each party to represent both genders. In other words, this law is requiring a certain proportion of women in parliament or any other elective council. Technically, electoral gender quotas are imposing a type of equal opportunity for women into political positions. In most countries, women hold only a small fraction of legislative posts and generally less inclined to participate in politics (The World
Bank, 2012). Gender quotas supposed to help correct this situation to expand female presence in politics (Dahlerup, 2013).
The demand for more significant female presence in male´s dominant space is part of the movement of dissatisfaction with existing political representation.
However, electoral gender quotas are the fast track, and behind this course, the model is impatience with slow change of the women´s position in societies which is the real development of women´s representation (Dahlerup, 2013).
Gender quotas are at any level of the political system, and they are most easily introduced under the proportional representation system, but that does not mean they are not implemented in majority systems. These quotas used in constitutional or legislative politics are legal candidate quotas or reserved seats. The elective and
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voluntary women´s quotas are political party quotas. Most of the quotas systems are based on requirements of electoral list of women and minimum of the percentage of them since women are the underrepresented group in politics, which immediately implies a maximum number of men´s representation. However, there are other quotas systems which set the maximum seat occupation for both genders around 40-60 percentages (Dahlerup, n.d.). Another type is a fifty-fifty quota, this supposed to be neutral. The last concept of quotas system requires a certain percentage of women in the electoral list. However, these positions are on the bottom with a small chance to be elected (Dahlerup, n.d.).
2.3.1 The Advantages and Disadvantages of Electoral Quotas
However, quotas also imply women, which are not qualified enough to participate in the real competition for seats, and moreover, they run for office only for the reason to be women. The crucial question is, whether the nominated women are placed in a position with a real chance to be elected, or only because of their gender. This situation made politics less qualified and given that preferences to women, because of the gender, makes unequal opportunity for men. For the run, the federal government office is education and competence necessary and the competition should be gender blind because the essential factor is a qualification
(Inc., n.d.). Technically, in this course of events, quotas violate the principles of liberal democracy and the concept of equality and opportunity, since the formal equal model cannot reach equality. According to Dahlerup (2019), quotas are not discrimination against men, but only compensation for hidden barriers which prevent equal opportunity in the competition which are in the electoral process.
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3 History of Suffrage in Canada
It is the right of every citizen to participate in the process of decision making and to seek any public office in a particular state. In the past, however, all citizens were not represented in the policy-making process. Women´s rights are the rights of all women, which formed during the Era of Enlightenment, in the 19th century.
However, they took a significant part in society during the feminist movement in the 20th century. Furthermore, women´s political right emerged from the events mentioned above as demand and need for the right to participate in government and its legal process of lawmaking (Hosken, 1981).
The term suffrage is often associated with a women´s suffrage movement, however the ideas of universal suffrage was a concept of rights to vote for all adults, except for the insane, certain classes of convicted criminals and those citizens they lack the right to vote, regardless of their income and property ownership, race or ethnicity, since the 19th century. The concept of universal suffrage is to some extent influenced the development of women´s suffrage because, in many countries of first modern democracies, the government restricted universal suffrage to only for male citizens. To help extend political rights for women were used political campaign by both genders its extensive class base.
The political rights of women in Canada were uncommon, as they were established and authorized separately because of the federal form of government and its necessity to consider the acquisition of the voting rights in the federal and province sphere separately. Granting voting rights to women in the 5 Western provinces did not necessarily mean for the federal government to consider women's
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suffrage in federal elections. The granting of provincial rights came under separate provinces that have separate jurisdictions that apply only at the provincial level
(Cleverdon, 1950).
The important fact is that nowadays women´s suffrage is considered as a birthright under the international treaty, Convention on the Elimination of All Form of
Discrimination Against Women, since 1979 by 189 states and the United Nations
General Assembly.
3.1 English-Canadian Suffragists Society
The situation of women´s political representation in Canada in the 20th century occupied the political agenda of most political leaders and parties. However, the extension of franchise debates started in the 19th century within a group of future leaders of the suffrage movement in Canada. The typical majority of suffragists were from middle-class, well-educated and courteous. The suffrage movement attracted male and female professionals, a few reform-minded business people, and the wives of professionals.
From the Western world experiences, the suffragists were not in a part of society that would attract a significant number of supporters, especially at the start of the suffrage revolution. Feminism and the suffrage movement were no exception in
Canada. The beginning of the social transition in Canada was the period from
1877 to the end of the 19th century (Cleverdon, 1950). The suffrage association in this period is defined as more feminist-oriented than the concept of voting rights.
The feminist is then defined as a person who demands total economic, political and social equality between the sexes. As a representative of this era is considered
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a physician Dr Emily Stowe, who changed the view of society and women in the study, for which she was forced to leave Canada. She invented the organization the Toronto Women's Literary Club that advocated for fundamental and significant changes in education and social policy, especially those with women. Her partner in the struggle for equality for women was the political reformer, temperance advocate Dr Amelia Yeoman. These women were lifelong fighters against discrimination. They were both pioneers and guides in their fields of education and political engagement. Their way of approaching society was considered controversial, outspoken and aggressive, especially in their diligent persuasion.
Therefore, they were considered as an unpopular layer in society, and their thoughts and reforms had not attracted a substantial number of the following that was able to make significant changes in society.
From the beginning of the feminist movement and suffragists attracted the population to the same extent, the community that wanted to achieve social reform. These people were convinced that women should have their privilege right to vote and their voice should be heard, there should be gender equality in society. Nonetheless, the elemental vision for them was the model of the family and the education that the woman established into childhood, especially within the
Christian faith. The franchise was connected to British Empire efforts to establish imperial ownership of Canada and Aboriginals land of the First Nation people, as inducement of white privilege settlement. In this demonstration, the British
Empire was a protestant monarchy, which excluded Catholics and Jacobites, and on the other hand, had respect to the Jewish community (Sangster, 2018).
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In the 20th century, the suffrage movement began to attract a diverse kind of community which was motivated by different significant drives: social reformers were joined by people who emphasized other interests of feminism. Their center of attention was family status and childcare, education and health care, not the issue of equality between men and women. The need for these new supporters of the movement was clearly in need to increase the influence of women in the family. However, the problem of feminism has occurred in the inability to respond to new social challenges. The woman was no longer recognized as a wife but as a person. This term was used in conjunction with a man, but from that moment, women demanded the same liberal rights as men, especially political franchise, with which feminists in Canada did not identify. Thus, feminists did not disappear from Canadian society, but only became less critical and their needs visible to society as a whole (Bacchi, 1976).
Social reformers were not attractive for the middle class, and the feminist ideology became unpopular. It became a problem for the feminism, which did not estimate the overwhelming solutions of the incoming middle-class problems. The middle class faced the problems of large corporations that have begun to disrupt the balance of small, medium and large businesses. Other problems were urbanization, which led to a reduction in the number of people living in areas. One of the significant problems was increasing immigration from different states with different culture behavior. Social reformists were mainly traditionalists who built the society on the family, which was the ideal building block of the state and the community as a whole. These reforms included the representation of women's suffrage, but from the opposite point of view. Women represented family needs; her liberal
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rights should be elected and within strengthened the whole family. The focus on family and child was emphasized by the role of women in the family and the child. Therefore, all other suggestions that the role of mothers, in the suffrage movement, had been rejected, was incorrect. Thus, women's right to vote was brought closer to people across social classes. One of the consequential mistakes in interpreting voting reforms for women is neglecting traditional values and, on the contrary, assuming that society supported this legal reform as it had the legal knowledge and understood the development of a liberal society. Women, at that time, belonged to a class that was firmly nationally ambitious and traditionally based on their gender interests (Bacchi, 1976).
3.2 The Struggle before Suffrage Movement
The suffrage movement in Canada took place in British and French colonies and provinces that later formed into the state known as Canada. Therefore, it is necessary to put the previous acts of the law of individual colonies into the context of the struggle for women's voting rights. Especially after evidence that its colonizers influenced the territory of today's Canada.
January 1, in 1791, the territory of Ontario and Quebec (Upper and Lower
Canada), passed and authorized a new Constitutional Law, which provided the right to vote to any "person" who is in ownership of particular values property
(Cleverdon, 1950). This legislation was uniform with the English common law, in which women did not appear as persons with the right to vote. However, the next election on the 11th June 1792, individuals and woman who did accomplish the conditions could be part of a political decision due to the unspecified qualification
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of gender in law (Cleverdon, 1950). Women occurred in public elections, especially in Lower Canada, Montreal in the elections of 1832, where 14 percent of participating people were women (Sangster, 2018). When women were active voters, parties blamed each other for manipulating the elections by taking into account women that voted, usually against Tories (Sangster, 2018).
In 1834, the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada, today's Quebec, passed a law that contained a paragraph on the protection of women from dangerous conditions in polling stations and elections as such that could cause psychological harm to the women concerned if they wanted to take part in the elections. This law was designed as a measure against the growing influence of the aspiring suffrage movement, which women supported in their political engagement. The
1840 Act of Union, in Upper and Lower Canada, was drafted by primarily francophone party Parti Patriote, by leader Louis-Joseph Papineau (Sangster,
2018). The effect of Act contributed to the decreasing number of politically active women with the right to vote. For Papineau, women´s interested were encompassed to the patriarchal family member, who represented her opinion. This position was opposite of what Papineau saw in his family as a son of Rosalie
Papineau, who rebelled and voted in a Lower Canada elections in 1809 when she voted for her son. Since then, Louis-Joseph Papineau was in favor of affluent women in colonial Canada, so his bill proposals where opposed women´s suffrage
(Sangster, 2018). However, Papineau´s bill had to be corrected because of its controversy and, above all, the interpretation itself, when some women participated in elections because they were eligible for voting rights. Since then, the law increased social conservatism upon society in Lower Canada, and within the next years, in
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1849, Baldwin-LaFontaine introduced a new law, which banned any women's presence in formal elections (Sangster, 2018). Till 1849 Baldwin Law, all unmarried women, property owners, in Quebec were eligible to participate in elections. From that moment, women were imagined as second-class citizens without loyalty to the
British Crown, irrational part of the population with lacking the required stake in the community signified by their possession of a property. Many people were excluded by white male legalized acts, as an example Quakers, Roman Catholics,
African Canadians, new immigrants, people without any property of significant value, lunatics, criminals and Aboriginals. However, it is necessary to mention, that rules on voter eligibility were adopted from the British Empire (Sangster,
2018).
From 1836, during the unification of Canada under the British Empire, starting with
Prince Edward Island to British Columbia in 1872, every province disenfranchised women and disqualified women from any election (Sangster, 2018). Following the summit of the unification of the Canadian Confederation within the British
Empire, a new discussed and passed Constitutional Act, British North America
Act 1867, allowing every "British male subject" over the age of 21 to vote within extended conditions of each province with ownership of property, either savings, land, payment (Cleverdon, 1950). Thus, this law has directly disqualified women from participating in electoral decision-making at Confederation level, as well as their provinces. Only rich men, elitist property owners, had the right to vote. This law was in line with the pending legislative amendment to the ban on Chinese residents voting rights in western British Columbia in 1872. However, on January
1 in 1873, year after banning on Chinese residents, British Columbia women with
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property were allowed to vote in municipal elections but disqualified to hold the office (Sangster, 2018).
In 1880, the debate about women’s suffrage started within provincial autonomy issues. Until 1885, under the terms of the British North America Act, to all provinces were determined rules which defined who was eligible to vote in federal elections (Cleverdon, 1950). In that time, Prime Minister Sir John Alexander
Macdonald was preparing the expansion of franchise by property-based qualification, but with most of the Conservative party parliament members, he had an aversion to universal suffrage. However, the original draft included the franchise to unmarried women and widow with the property, because Macdonald had realized that the establishment of women's rights was only a matter of time. The bill with the part of women´s suffrage was introduced in 1884 and defeated within the same year. In
1885, Macdonald´s Electoral Franchise Act restrained three fundamental conditions for obtaining citizen´s voting right; reached the age of 21, being a British subject by birth or naturalization, the property-based qualification varied according to whether an individual lived in a city or countryside ("Elections Canada Online |
From a Privilege to a Right 1867-1919, 2018). In the same year, Liberal Member of Parliament, John Waters reintroduced women´s suffrage proposal, which was the first suffrage proposal for the Liberal party, and he continued to in every session until he left the office in 1894 (Cleverdon, 1950).
3.3 The First Wave of Feminism in Canada
Appointments under Chapter 1 refer to The Feminist Movement; 1.1.1 is then devoted to the chapter of The First Wave of Feminism in the world and its ideology.
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On the contrary, the Subchapter 3.3 highlights the first wave in Canada, and therefore the description of the first wave ideology itself is referred to 1.1.1.
In brief: the first wave feminism was dedicated to supporting women in job opportunities and increased access to education, women´s suffrage, recognition as a person in law, increased property rights for women and pacifism.
The first wave of feminism in Canada has been on a small scale since the beginning of the 19th century. To understand the situation in Canada is necessary to recognize the socio-economic differences and the division of society. Only the women who reached the middle class and originated from Europe provided organizational events in their time. Thus, feminism and later the struggle for the political franchise were initially heavily influenced by socio-economic status, with only the new Canadian middle class, the so-called white society (formerly
Europeans) and were seeking new privileges. These privileges met their needs and were granted only to them. The differences also existed within the language; The
English-speaking majority had a separate class system from French-speaking fellow citizens. This difference was all the more apparent in the coming years when Canada was united. The form of their ability to communicate then depended entirely on the heritage of the concept of woman as a mother, which had been the same across the language barrier and the cultural difference. The maternal feminism, mothers of the nation, played a significant role in society and women´s engagement in missionary work (Strong-Boag, 2016b).
However, other groups were associated later without a higher class of privileges from former Europeans. These groups include socialists, women from prairies and
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farms, and especially women of non-European origin. Besides, across a divided society, it reached consensus. The leading causes of struggle with citizens' universal voting rights in Canada were deficiencies in education for women, neglected affordable health care, unilateral family law (child belonging to a male -
English common law), employment and also emerging employment unions. The potential of broad alliances was and remained to be a significant case in Canadian women’s movements. One of the broad unite factor of society was religion, especially after the rejection of women by Churches on missionaries as teachers and doctors. Missionaries for Canadian women were influential in giving the opportunity to manage their private life with fulfilment employment.
The image of the woman had changed, and despite the maternal feminism, the woman remained a household mother, but with the role of responsibility with the organization of society, especially in urban areas. This new role was the answer to the problem of the prevailing atmosphere of urban life, which helped feminists to fight alcoholism, prostitution and thus higher crime rates. On the contrary, women in agriculture, farms and prairies were struggling with the problems of urbanization and lack of people. This problem had been solved by a farmers' association that had been actively involved in the employment of women as assistants.
Many organizations offered a number of particular solutions to other problems.
Some of them were purely informational, others of the organizational type. From the topics concerned the music association to specific women who performed in professional work.
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The organizations that attracted the most attention were the National Council of
Women of Canada (NCWC), and the Fédération nationale Saint-Jean-Baptiste
(FNSJB) and with the more significant impact the Woman's Christian Temperance
Union (WCTU) (Strong-Boag, 2016b).
3.3.1 The Impact of the Woman´s Christian Temperance Union
The Woman´s Christian Temperance Union was extended non-denominational women´s organization of citizens in the 19th century in Canada. As the first women´s organization supported political equality which began to appear in Canada on a local scale in the '70s in the 19th century and achieved national status in 1885.
The official date of established WCTU was on the 1st of January in 1874 in Owen
Sound, Ontario (Cleverdon, 1950). By becoming a national union in 1885, the organization reached 16,000 members across Canada in 1914 (Cleverdon, 1950).
The organization advocated a program prohibiting the alcoholic beverage, which
WCTU indicated as the source of violence against women and children and the same cause of illness, unemployment and poverty. WCTU was mainly supported by the increasing number of the middle class. However, it was primarily influenced by
Protestantism, and thus the WCTU did not avoid some pressure from religious groups.
The alcohol prohibition was in the start of WCTU the first political, changing social demand with which they wanted to succeed with the majority of citizens.
The WCTU had supported responsible behavior to the family and the community work and since that early temperance movements had thought that individual effort, rather than legislative change. The WCTU had initially campaigned for
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abstinence using petitions. However, by the 80s, Letitia Youmans, the president of the Ontario WCTU, and members of WCTU were convinced that prohibition could only be achieved through legislative change. To promote and continue to influence the legislative process, they wanted to achieve it through universal suffrage, which would include women.
Letitia Youmans helped the WCTU has expanded throughout Canada. Youmans established in 1875 another branch of the organization in Toronto, where became the first WCTU president in Ontario (Cleverdon, 1950). Youmans, after establishing a branch in Ontario, also tried to expand the organization across Canada; eastern Canada from 1875 to central and western Canada, today's Saskatchewan and Alberta in 1876
(Sangster, 2018). Regional WCTU had an executive administrator and a series of work departments managed by a director. Once per year, local union presidents and directors met with the provincial executive at a convention where reports were submitted and resolutions debated. Although these local unions reported to provincial organizations, they preserved autonomy and shaped their projects according to local interests. However, in 1882 Youmans, the first president of national WCTU resigned in order to found the Dominion WCTU. The World
Dominion was found in 1885, and the United States and Great Britain dominated it (Cleverdon, 1950).
Although the WCTU did not initially, as the primary goal, have the women's right to vote. At the time of its creation, it was the only organization that was interested in and informed the general public about suffrage and especially women´s rights.
It is no coincidence that suffrage leaders often served as an internship in the temperance field. Unconventionally, WCTU followers and members petitioned
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local, provincial, and federal governments, and frequently organized delegations to legislatures. While some demonstrated, there was an inadequate club of followers, and small beginning organized groups that aspiring to their rights, usually in the capitals only. These individuals had specific connections, lobbying for their opinions and interests, to the people who had the authority (Simmons,
1989). In 1888, the WCTU approved at its national congress unequivocal support for women's suffrage, making it as a priority in its program and thus becoming the first official organization in Canada to represent the public interests in equal voting rights and opportunities (Cleverdon, 1950). Supporting voting rights by the
WCTU has become crucial, in the struggle for women´s suffrage, by providing a platform for women who wanted to be publicly active participants in the organization.
3.3.2 The First Women´s Suffrage Club Organizations in Canada
The Toronto Women´s Literary Club established by a group of women, and especially
Dr Emily Howard Stowe, was founded in 1876 (Cleverdon, 1950). The Literary
Club advocated women´s political status, as women´s right to vote, thus becoming the first Canadian women´s suffrage society. The name for this organization was to choose with a sense to avoid public or personal controversy about its activities.
However, well-educated, urban middle-class women supported suffrage organization, since they encountered discrimination among their professions as medicine. One of the trailblazers was Dr Emily Stowe, the founder of Toronto
Women´s Literary Club. To change these issues and social problems women had to gain a political voice, thus primarily goal and priority was women´s suffrage.
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In 1875 and 1877 were made several external changes to extend the municipal franchise to women; however, those discussions failed. On January 1, 1882, the provincial government of Ontario, granted municipal franchised to unmarried women or widowed with a property qualification (Cleverdon, 1950). Due to these changes, women increased importance in the '80s and sent petitions to city and county councils to allow all women to participate in the provincial franchise. By
1883, public opinion about women´s suffrage increased, and part of the Toronto
Woman´s Literary Club was formed to a Canadian Women´s Suffrage Association with a leader Dr Emily Stowe, who brought the issue of women´s rights to public and stimulated few immediate changes for women throughout Canada (Cleverdon,
1950). The primary step and purpose of the association were to discuss the future ability to grant the municipal franchise to women to all qualifications in Ontario.
The CWSA had representatives from both sexes and together were providing service of acknowledging citizens with law issues against women. In 1884, the franchise act was extended to the local municipal form for all women in Ontario
(Cleverdon, 1950). Those actions led in 1885 to John Waters, who had been proposing a new legal bill to give women the provincial franchise (Cleverdon,
1950).2 The remained problem was the federal and provincial level of elections under the Electoral Franchise Act, were only a “person” could be a voter, but federal government defined the person as "a male person” only.
The remaining part of the Toronto Women´s Literary Club emerged into The
National Council of Women in 1893 (Cleverdon, 1950). The National Council of
Women was an organization that believed women should get the vote, not because
2 John Waters was a member of Canadian Liberal party, who represented the Ontario in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.
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of equality with men, but because this would make their role of a mother more effective (maternal feminism). The organization gathered a large number of middle-class populations, especially women who looked after volunteers in the public health care, which was neglected, especially in cities due to the increasing urbanization. These solutions had prompted many women to oppose the existing system and to support the organization and its campaign to meet its goals. As the organization directly targeted middle-class women with its slogans, other classes were eliminated. In doing so, the party disqualified women of any color, social status, or nationality from any discussion. Thus, since the middle class was a
European and white-colored, the organization became slightly racist in its selection characteristics. However, this step was not extraordinary as the society had to deal with the entrance of immigrants; at that time the difference of opinion of society was quite natural. Thus, an example of racism in organizations and society is the promotion of the rights of all women, the rights of all women being the rights of all women of the white and middle classes. One of the long-standing examples of this, racism, is the example of Canada, where Native residents and people from
Asia had no voting rights since 1869 till 1895 when only Japanese male residents gained the right to vote due to increasing population in Vancouver, British Columbia
(Sangster, 2018).
3.3.3 Raising Women´s Suffrage and the National Council of Women
At the beginning of the '90s in the 19th century, people began to speak about women's suffrage in local, provincial and federal form. These opinions have been sharply criticized, especially by the provincial and federal governments. An example of such criticism in 1893 was John Dryden, Minister of Agriculture in Ontario, who
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expressed strong criticism against suffrage "The man was not meant for a woman, but the woman was for men" (Cleverdon, 1950). In doing so, he exposed his attitude to the submissive character of a woman in society and to her unlawfulness to vote and joined the opposition, who feared the threat to the religious and national community. The model example cases presented by the suffragists were the countries of New Zealand, which gave women the right to vote, and this new policy had no negative impact on society concerning increasing divorce rates and decreasing birth rates. The unusual case was, they did not use examples of Canadas
Indigenous cultures to justify their movement even that in Haudenosaunee culture was a matriarchy government. The problem was the promotion of the Canadian state´s vision of the superior white nation and inevitably replacing Indian (Sangster,
2018).
The exclusion of women from civil obligation and responsibility, the right to vote, was acceptable to many of Canada's citizens, as society´s knowledge of women's capacity and ability to be a male partner, at a time, minimal. One of the men's arguments why women did not have voting rights was the military duty and service that women did not practice. Thus they were convinced that women were not physically capable of deciding on complex issues of politics.
However, many prominent men, as well as women, were opposing the anti- suffrage argument. One of them was Dr James L. Hughes from Toronto, who in
1895 put forth a pamphlet in which he destroyed 42 reasons to enfranchisement and listed 27 arguments in favor of the proposal (Cleverdon, 1950). Dr Hughes presented such a significant influence of declaration supporting equality of sexes
(Cleverdon, 1950). Another point was the justice for women, who were taxpayers
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without any participation in lawmaking, women´s point of view and influence in order to shape balance in society and policymaking. The primary defence of the suffrage case was simple justice.
On the other hand, women were mostly not interested in public issues, and suffragists contended that managing the vote would lead them to a greater sense of social and public responsibility, expand their interests, and generally make them better citizens. This awareness was about to be changed by most influential woman´s organization in Canada, the National Council of Women, founded by
Lady Aberdeen in 1893 in Toronto, which had a purpose of applying the Golden
Rule to society, custom and law (Cleverdon, 1950).3 It has achieved reforms in laws, which had the protection of women, children and the working class as an outcome. The National Council of Women was not only a suffrage organization, but rather women´s organization of all types in cities across Canada, and especially Canadian advocacy association. The organization served as an advisor on legal issues based on existing design policy. The organization played an advisory role in the political situation, laws and their problems and proposed new legislative recommendations of a legal act and entirely new law bills that reflected discussions with the community. These discussions then led to enrollment laws that were by an organization approved or rejected. A formal document that has been voted at the organization level is then passed on to the appropriate authorities and politicians for discussion and subsequent change. However, this change depended entirely on the authority and politician. The way it was possible to force
3 The system, policy of common law of treating others as one's self would wish to be treated. The Golden rule can be recognized as an ethic of mutual exchange of reciprocity.
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policy at the appropriate authority to act was through active sending of its ("Role in
Women's Movement", n.d.).
The organization played a crucial role in the creation of the Victorian Order of
Nurses, the Women's Art Association of Canada, the Children's Aid Society and the Canadian Association of Consumers. Moreover, it had a significant role in establishing the Women's Bureau of Labour Canada, the Federal Bureau on
Ageing, and supported the appeal for the Royal Commission on the Status of
Women, which formed the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women.
In 1904, the National Council initiated and established a new Standing Committee on Suffrage and Rights of Citizenship, where Dr Augusta Stowe-Gullen, daughter of Dr Emily Stowe, was president until 1921. During this time, the organization was transformed continuously and in 1910 adopted a newly established platform, which was based on the fundamental requirements of suffrage. By that time, suffragists had already their voting privileges in many cities, within municipal election or elections for parks, library and school boards (Cleverdon, 1950).
Under the leadership of Augusta Stowe-Gullen, until 1921, the organization succeeded in promoting political equality among citizens, subordinate to new laws in the suffrage movement (Clverdon, 1950). However, the organization still struggled with the conditions for admission to an establishment that was mainly formed of the local elite, the influence of European women who were white races.
Only on the west coast of British Columbia, where lived several women of Asian origin, the organization decided to designate membership to the elite from Japan.
The racist, discriminatory elements and tendencies of the system were utterly
44
presented, even in the period before the First World War. Further, because of the growing popularity throughout the country, the organization was no longer overlooked, and in many cities, provinces it was legitimately regarded as a political movement that had to be respected given the organization's appearances and size
(Sangster, 2018).
3.3.4 Women and the Voting Rights in the Pre-War during War-time
The First World War made the government recognized the contribution of women and the war effort of thousands of workers in factories, war-related industries, which formerly had employed men only. The fact that women entered the labor market and held positions that had been exclusively designated for male, it resulted in decreasing general wages. Labor unions responded to this with supporting universal suffrage and thus to ensure legal recognition of employment relationships between the employer and the woman (Sangster, 2018).
Women, Canadian suffragists were determined to fight for social reform, public health, child labor, the prohibition of alcohol and primarily for the right to vote in provincial and federal elections.4 Between the rural women of Canada and the
Women´s Institutes in cities, there was the same need for organization, which was answered by the Local Councils in towns and cities. These organizations of women began to discuss suffrage and to agitate for its adoption. In provinces where the agricultural population was dominant, as the Prairie Provinces and New
Brunswick, the Women´s Institutes were particularly efficient. However, it was not only women's organizations that decided to join in the movement. The women
4 The municipal franchise was extended by 1900-1910 for most women, property owners across Canada.
45
of the Prairie Provinces found farmers´ associations of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, where all of them officially supported suffrage between 1911 and
1912. 5 These farmers paid service and joined their women in petition and delegations, sustained the idea of equality and admitting full woman membership to their organization, which has expressed their support (Cleverdon, 1950).
3.3.4.1 Women Suffrage Movement in Prairies
In the summer of 1912, The Manitoba Suffrage Movement returned to the lead of the Manitoba´s media, mainly because of Nellie McClung, who publicly opposed discrimination against women and participated in elections for the Liberal Party despite all legal prohibitions (Sangster, 2018). These events, along with petitions and the newly founded Political Equality League, were backed by many associations, including the Manitoba Grain Growers' Association, the WCTU and the Manitoba Direct Legislation League. These petitions were turned into a positive result when they collected more than 20,000 signatures by 1913 and releasing the Liberals as a supporter of women's suffrage.
Nevertheless, in 1914, the Conservatives party, headed by Sir Rodmond Roblin, once again regained political power in 1915 (Goldsborough, 2013). However, the
Conservative was overthrown after the scandal that resulted in the newly appointed Prime Minister of Manitoba, Tobias Norris. The elected Liberal Prime
Minister promised to support women's franchise, with the Political Equality
League. On 23 December, the PEL presented a draft act, which was signed by
39,584 people ("Elections Canada Online | The Evolution of the Federal
5 The United Farmers Association of Alberta and the Grain Growers Association
46
Franchise", 2014). On January 28 of 1916, Election Act was passed, and women received their voting rights, including the possibility to represent the office
("Elections Canada Online | The Evolution of the Federal Franchise", 2014).
However, this law was applied only to the province of Manitoba, not to the national federal government of Canada. Manitoba province was the first jurisdiction in Canada, which removed the discrimination barrier of voting rights and the ability to hold provincial office. This act was the first move in a decades- long struggle to achieving franchise women throughout Canada. However, it was only for some women who met the conditions: 21 years and older and over of
British descent or citizenship who did not received in last 3 years any treaty money or annuity, people without physical or mental disabilities, people in hospitals or prison, and any person employed by government ("History of the
Vote | Manitoba Status of Women", n.d.).
Since Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta were formerly one province called
North-West Territories, otherwise known as Prairie, Manitoba and Saskatchewan were alike in expending the legislative struggle for women's franchise ("100th
Anniversary of Women's Right to Vote in Canada - Celebrate International
Women's Day - Status of Women Canada", 2018).
One of the suffrage movement representatives in Saskatchewan was Violet Clara
McNaughton, who managed the Women's Grain Growers' Association in the campaign for women's suffrage along with the WCTU in Ontario and PEL in
Manitoba. On 14th February of 1916, along with McNaughton's representative, presented to the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan a 10,000 signatures petition associated to the women's suffrage ("Saskatchewan celebrates 100th
47
anniversary of (some) women getting the vote", 2016). Exactly a month later, an act to amend the Saskatchewan Election Act allowed women to in Saskatchewan participate in the polls as well as achieve a representative office in the province.
Saskatchewan became the second province to give women the right to vote at the provincial level and hold the provincial office when met the qualification and requirements to be older 21 years and over of British descent ("Saskatchewan celebrates 100th anniversary of (some) women getting the vote", 2016).
On April 16, 1916, The Equal Suffrage Statutory Law Amendment Act passed in the legislative process and made Alberta the third province in Canada with franchise women on the provincial level ("Alberta women gained the right to vote in provincial elections 101 years ago", 2017). Achieving the voting right for women in Alberta was relatively unanimous than on the east coast of Ontario or
Quebec, due to the support of the Alberta population as well as the other provinces of the Prairie ("Alberta women gained the right to vote in provincial elections 101 years ago", 2017). This effort of the population was beyond the standard, which had several reasons; it goes to one of the most liberal conservative provinces with the lowest taxes and struggles to create the free market. Alberta has always been a province where people cared more about what one does and how it contributes to society than who is. Since 1905, when the province joined the
Confederacy, the rights of women and men were ostracized, which bothered the population (Suffragette, 2016). Only the Liberal Government of Rutherford, along with activist Emily Murphy, has granted some property rights to women who have been abolished by the Confederation. In 1909, is established an act of legislature
Alberta Election Act, which allowed participation in elections ("Alberta women
48
gained the right to vote in provincial elections 101 years ago", 2017). It was, therefore, a substitution of the word "man" for "a person". In 1910, married women in Alberta gained the right to vote in municipal elections, and two years later in
1912, the suffrage movement and the United Farmers of Alberta and Grain
Grower’s Guide united together (Suffragette, 2016). The following year, the
League and the Local Council of Women of Calgary put together a petition of
12,000 signatures that endorsed the voting right for women (Suffragette, 2016).
That was the reason, why the award of the right to vote is attributed to public recognition, which was promoted by the society in the foreground of United
Farmers of Alberta and Grain Grower’s Guide who did not oppose to women's suffrage, as they are actively involved in building a community and state. It was this argument that won the women's right to vote in Alberta. In 1915, Prime
Minister of Alberta, Sifton promoted women's franchise after extensive support of
40,000 signatures in the petition (Suffragette, 2016). The bill was adopted at third reading on 16 April 1916, and thus women officially became equal in the right to vote at the provincial level and hold the office when met the requirements to be older 21 years and over of British descent (Suffragette, 2016).
3.3.4.2 Women´s suffrage in British Columbia
As for British Columbia activists have been interested in women's suffrage since the 1890s, when they submitted bills to the Legislative Assembly, but without any positive response ("Women's Suffrage", n.d.). The most active movement was the
WCTU within the cooperation with Mary Ellen Smith and Laura Marshall Jamieson activists, which had the most supporters in Vancouver and Victoria, who also organized petitions for equal voting rights. In British Columbia, many activist
49
movements considered suffrage movement important, especially with the problem of labor discrimination in the market, where women were underpaid. In 1912,
British Columbia's socialist and labor movements joined the call for equal women's political franchise (Strong-Boag, 2016a). This challenge also concerned women of other origins, Asians and Indigenous peoples, who were considered second class residents in other provinces. On March 19, 1913, the Vancouver Sun published a special edition that dealt only with women's voting rights, along with evidence including petitions and demonstrations that pointed to the population's support for the development of equal voting rights that were rejected by the Conservative
Parties (Strong-Boag, 2016a).
British Columbia was the only province, which called for a referendum. The referendum was negotiated in September of 1916 by Premier William Bowser, the
Conservative party, and held by the newly elected winner of the election, Harlan
Carey Brewster, the Liberal Party ("Women's Suffrage", n.d.). In 1916, in the referendum 43 619 voters showed their support for the suffrage, which was crucial to the Liberals, and the new law act came into force on 5 April 1917
(Strong-Boag, 2016a).
3.3.4.3 Women´s Suffrage in Ontario
The Province of Ontario was necessary for the struggle for equal voting rights, as the suffrage organizations were first established in Ontario. Initially, the Dominion
Franchise for Women was focused on women in Canada, but after the suffrage movement moved to other provinces, the Dominion Franchise began to focus primarily on women in Ontario. One of the leading representatives was Dr
Augusta Stowe Gullen, daughter of Toronto Women´s Literary Club founder Dr
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Emily Howard Stowe. Together with the WCTU, which continued to operate in
Ontario, in 1905, they participated in the collective development of efforts for
Prime Minister of Ontario, after which they demanded equal voting rights in municipal elections extended to married women (Hill, 2005). Their proposal was rejected, which turned the organization into a major Canadian Suffrage Association and in 1909 demanded the full equalization of women, supported by the National
Council of Women (Hill, 2005).
In 1911, a new law bill was introduced by the Labor member, Allan Studholme, who, however, did not even get a more extensive discussion and was rejected entirely (Hill, 2005). It was critical to recall that referendums, which took place between 1914 and 1916 in Ontario at the city level to decide women's suffrage
(Hill, 2005). Moreover, it turned out into a positive result; the government of
Ontario has still not responded to its citizens' decisions and insisted on a strict separation between women and men from civil obligations. In 1917, after the other provinces, including British Columbia, legalized the voting rights of women, the
Liberals in Ontario decided to place this point in their political program (Hill,
2005). 20th February of 1917, N.W Rowell was opening Parliament by his speech of enfranchisement of women in Ontario. A few days later, J.W. Johnson of
Belleville introduced a women´s suffrage bill, which was accepted by Prime
Minister Hearst, the Conservative party. The long struggle for suffrage in Ontario ended on February 17 of 1917, when the Liberals and Conservatives united and passed the bill (Sangster, 2018). Later, on 12 April 1917, by the Ontario Franchise
Act, Ontario joined other provinces in the extension of suffrage. It was the first
Conservative government to pass women’s suffrage act (Strong-Boag, 2016a).
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3.3.4.4 Women´s Suffrage in Atlantic
In Nova Scotia, the movement had a different progression. In 1836, women in
Nova Scotia were not allowed to vote, and despite repeated petitions, nothing had changed in 1894 and 1895, when the Lower House of Legislature first received petitions from the movement and organizations for women´s suffrage associations
("Nova Scotia Archives - Suffrage in Nova Scotia: Making our Mark", 2019). Only in
1911, the lower house of the legislature decided on the right to vote for women; the bill passed through the Lower House of Legislature, but immediately returned for a reasonable suspicion that women were not interested in their rights
(Sangster, 2018). However, suffragists tried to persuade the legislators of their misunderstanding. The commitment of the movement had prompted several social decisions of resolutions from across the province that appeared to the legislators who had promised a new proposal and agreed to negotiate it, but the Legislature
Committee had delayed the law because of extensive unspecified research. The law was not discussed again until 1916 when the lower house did not support the bill proposal. It was only in 1918 when the negotiations were discussed again, this time with a positive result; women gained their right to vote because of the support of society and communities ("Elections Canada Online | A History of the
Vote in Canada", 2018). They gathered letters and petitions that were asking for the bill to be discussed. Among the politicians, there was a change of opinion, mainly because of the First World War, which led to federal expansion of the franchise. Then, in 1918, April 26, the law was rightfully discussed and approved.
The Nova Scotia Franchise Act granted women the right to vote at the provincial level ("Nova Scotia Archives - Suffrage in Nova Scotia: Making our Mark", 2019).
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However, only women with a specified amount of property were granted the rights to vote ("History of Voting in Nova Scotia", n.d.).
3.3.4.5 Suffrage in Federal Elections
In 1917, in war-era, controversial Canadian law emerged from Prime Minister
Robert Borden, the Conservative Party, which provided the right to vote to women whose relatives served in the war, including relatives to the wives, mothers and sisters of serving soldiers, as well as to women serving in the military.6 It also included Indians, in the Indian Act, who did not have the right to vote and participate until then. Also every common civilian man without any property, but with relatives in Canadian Forces, was temporarily eligible to vote. However, this law disenfranchised all citizens who have emigrated from "enemy" countries after
March 1902, like Mennonites and Doukhobors, unless those citizens had a son, grandson or brother on active duty in the Canadian military ("Elections Canada
Online | The Evolution of the Federal Franchise", 2014). The Wartime Elections
Act of 1917 was proposed in May to support the British Empire's battle forces and came into effect on September 20, 1917. The law divided Canada's society because it was in favor of all the English speaking Canadians; on the contrary, the
French-speaking population was in opposition (Panneton & English, 2015). The
National Council of Women responded to this law, adopting a resolution in which wanted to grant voting rights to all women in the same year.
In the next elections on December 17, the newly authorized act on electoral law was already in force, where over 500,000 women, who were mostly first-time voters, were newly observed during the election (Panneton & English, 2015). At this
6 All Canadian women were stilly refused to vote in federal elections.
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moment, it was the first election in which women elect their candidates to the federal representative government.
The following year, 1918, Borden's government was re-elected, and because women's suffrage groups and organizations, especially the National Council of
Women, made pressure on the government and Prime Minister Borden, he had been forced to reconsider the entire election law and then modified it to the universal bill. On March 21, 1918, Borden´s government established universal female suffrage law. However, that law was controversial and divided society.
Jean-Joseph Denis a politician represented Quebec province declared his standpoint, "I say that the Holy Scripture, theology, ancient philosophy, Christian philosophy, history, anatomy, physiology, political economy, and feminine psychology all seem to indicate that the place of women in this world is not amid the strife of the political arena, but in her home” ("Elections Canada Online |
From a Privilege to a Right 1867-1919, 2018). By the end of the First World War in 1918, the Act was abolished and replaced by the new legislation, An Act to
Confer Electoral Franchise Upon Women. On May 24, 1918, Canadian women, except Aboriginals (First Native, Inuit, Métis), received royal assent; most women
21 years of age and older were franchised in federal elections and had to meet the same property requirements as existed for men in their provinces. However, this law did not apply to Asian origin, Inuit, Métis, and Aboriginal people.
3.3.5 The Universal Franchise
In July 1919, under An Act to Confer Electoral Franchise Upon Women, all enfranchised women over 21 years of age and older with provincial eligibility
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requirements gained the right to stand for federal office ("History of the Vote |
Manitoba Status of Women", n.d.).
On July 1, 1920, The Dominion Election Act passed and granted the extensions of the vote to all women in Canada (not otherwise disqualified) (Cleverdon, 1950).
New legislation regulated the access to elections, which has been changed to a general electoral approach, regardless of ownership property requirements. The new and united criterions for voting were citizenship and age; 21 years and older.
From that moment, the Canadian government at the federal order did not intervene in the provincial elections, but only guaranteed federal elections.
Although supervisory oversight has been a thing of the past in federal elections, the Act declared that anyone who was disenfranchised by provincial law because of a race would remain disenfranchised from the nationwide vote. In the province of Manitoba, federal elected people were those who were included among the
Aboriginals, people with social benefits, physically and mentally handicapped, prisoners, people in hospitals, or citizens who worked for the Canadian government as officials and ("History of the Vote | Manitoba Status of Women", n.d.). This discrimination included people of Chinese origin in Saskatchewan, and those of Indigenous, Chinese, Japanese, and South Asian origins in British
Columbia. This decision performed into further development in Canada, especially in the province of Quebec. Although women from the National Council of Women were satisfied with the results of the revisions to the law, they continued to discuss other changes, including the opportunity to be elected to the Senate, which was not possible until 1929 (Cleverdon, 1950).
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3.4 The First Federal Election
After the First World War, Canada faced many economic problems rising unemployment and declining industrial production. The Canadian federal election was held on 6th December in 1921 and had to elect members of the House of Commons
(Cleverdon, 1950). This election was a historical moment for many citizens of Canada; A
Liberal administration defeated the Unionist government of Arthur Meighen under W.L. Mackenzie King, but also it was the first federal election in which all women participated as voters. The Canadian political situation experienced a change as Canada´s first significant third party emerges, while women make their appearance in Canadian politics. As the western population grew and agriculture became more important to the Canadian economy, farmers started to demand their interests. Thus, regional divisions defined this election within the third political party, Progressive party, which gained success by targeting its platform to a specific region with a specific policy. Progressive party was in the center of the farmer´s movement and linked with United Farmers in West Canada. Progressives rejected the National Policy of the Conservatives; they left the Liberals because of their weakness of enforcing the free trade because of their ties to businesses, corporation and its business interests. None of the two traditional parties could meet the needs of people from the West.
The 1921 election was the first election that the majority of Canadian women were able to vote. Prairies province and British Columbia women gained their political rights under the support of farmers association and so the political situation after they emerged its political party was set. Approximately one and a quarter million women now possessed the right to vote (Cleverdon, 1950). The
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Conservatives recalled that their party had granted national franchise upon them, while Liberals, pointed to the enfranchisement of women in Manitoba,
Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia under the Liberal governments.
However, only 4 women candidates ran in the 1921 election (2 Labour, 1
Progressive, and 1 Liberal). In the election of 1921, Manitoba, Saskatchewan,
Alberta voted in favor of Progressive party. Agnes Macphail, from the Progressive party, district Grey South East in Ontario, was elected and became the first woman to hold office in the Canadian House of Commons (Sandy Klowak, 2010).
Macphail's campaign required to spend about $600, mostly from single dollar donations (Brown, 1999). Macphail did not perform as the leader of the votes of women. Instead, her enthusiastic expressions in the speech were frequently about the situation of farmers and other workers. In Parliament, 64 Progressives gained the seat and nearly all of them from the West and Ontario (Brown, 1999).
Macphail held the office with them in the Commons. The Progressives saw themselves not as a united political party, but as an association of independent people, who were in a revolution against the two traditional parties. The Progressives had the second-largest block of seats in the Commons, but they refused to be the official opposition (Brown, 1999).
3.5 Voting Rights in the Last Provinces
The campaigns for women's suffrage in Atlantic and Territories started from the beginning of the Confederation. It was not only about women´s political franchise but also about women's rights as such, which faced discrimination against married women. The struggle in the Northern provinces culminated in the period between
57
1918 and 1925 (MacDonald, 2017). Women rights activists in Atlantic Canada were more focused on local reforms than on regional or national. Although, principles that crossed distinct geographic borders informed them. In Northern provinces, legislation lacked the qualification of term gender. Women who dared to participate in elections legislators let voted until more specify terminology appeared in New Brunswick in 1843, Prince Edward Island (PEI) in 1836 and Nova
Scotia women participated until 1851 (MacDonald, 2017). Women, property owners who were not married were the first women to earn the vote in Atlantic
Canada (January 1, 1886) because of their participation in municipalities as taxpayers and husbands did not politically represent them (MacDonald, 2017).
3.5.1 Women´s Suffrage in Atlantic
As mentioned above, many activists focused primarily on local solutions to the women´s voting rights, but they were linked to the local WCTU branch. In the province of New Brunswick, the Women’s Enfranchisement Association of New
Brunswick, which was founded in 1894 in Saint John, addresses the issue of voting rights. The Member of the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick
William Roberts argued in the parliament in 1917: “A male foreigner, ignorant of our language, laws, customs, and national life gets the vote after three years’ residence because he is a ‘man.’ Would hon. Gentlemen class their mothers, wives and sisters with such men as these? Would they say that college graduates, school teachers, nurses, business and professional women were more ignorant than foreigners?” (MacDonald, 2017, p.164). Women in New Brunswick officially gained and were entitled to vote on April 17, 1919, but had to wait to be elected to the council until 1934, when they were allowed to do so (MacDonald, 2017).
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The situation on Prince Edward Island was different from other provinces, even given that the situation of the future prime minister of the provincial government,
John Howard Bell (1919), that he was supporting women's voting rights since
1890 (MacDonald, 2017). However, the problem was in legislation that extended the law approval process. One of the most important organizations in the province was the Women’s Liberal Association, which together with the Women's Institute in 1921 and 1922 established a petition for women's voting rights, thus seeking a faster legislative process for passing the law (MacDonald, 2017). In May 1922, the government was in the first reading of the draft, which passed on 3 May of
1922 and women of Prince Edward Island gained their voting rights (MacDonald,
2017).
The debate about a change of the legislature to enfranchise women in
Newfoundland and Labrador province started on 15 March 1892, but the majority of the Members of Parliament of the House of Assembly of Newfoundland were ultimately against it in a vote of 13 to 10 (Higgins, 2008). In 1893 and 1894, the
WCTU managed to arrange a debate on women's suffrage again at the House of
Assembly of Newfoundland, which was seen as a success that has not been repeated for a long time (MacDonald, 2017). It was not until 1909 that Armie
Gosling founds the Ladies´ Reading Room to discuss the struggle for voting rights in England. This club, thanks to its topic, had been gaining more than 125 new members in the first months of the year (MacDonald, 2017). The membership of the Reading Room was 3 dollars fee, which was accessible to women from all socio-economic classes, and within women got the chance to debate about current
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international affairs and attend informal university lectures, which helped them to start oriented in politics (Higgins, 2008).
Until the First World War, the suffrage campaign was doing great and had built a good foundation of support around the dominion. However, the Newfoundland community still saw suffragists in a negative light, as irrational and dangerous people, which unluckily turned the society against women´s enfranchisement.
During the First World War, many women in the community helped men and served Canada during the war. They contributed through working as nurses or knitting clothes for troops overseas, and at the end of the war, numerous women from the communities were recognized with civilian royal honors. However, the anti-suffrage prime minister of the Liberal party Richard Squires, the owner of
The Daily Star newspaper, showed an impossible obstruction while in office from
1919 to 1923 (MacDonald, 2017). Squires threatened other members of Legislative
Assembly to give voting rights to women, “a man who cannot keep order in his own home is unlikely to be fit to hold a position of public trust” (MacDonald, 2017, p.174). Women called for a petition to the legislature in 1921, which ultimately had
20,000 signatures (MacDonald, 2017). The new Conservative government, led by
W.S. Monroe, responded the need for suffrage with a law draft nine months after their 1924 election. However, this draft was linked to British legislation; only women aged 25 and over could vote in contrast to the required age of 21 for men.
The Government of Newfoundland argued with an assumption that an older woman held a prominent post in society than a younger one, perhaps because of maternity state. The province Newfoundland women gained their voting rights on 13 April
1925 (MacDonald, 2017). In 1928, 29 October, elections were held in which 90
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percent of all women participated. However, only one woman, Lady Helena
Squires, took an active part in the election, making her the first woman to sit in the
House of Assembly (Higgins, 2008).
It is interesting to note that even though people in the province tried to secure their voting rights for decades, they voluntarily surrendered them in favor of the
Commission of Government in the next elections in 1932 (Higgins, 2008).7 They were voluntarily repealing their voting rights because of the economic depression
(The Great Depression) and partial economic insufficiency. Until 1946, the
Newfoundland province had no voting rights (Higgins, 2008).
7 Commission of Government was established after the collapse of Newfoundland's economy during the Great Depression. The Newfoundland House of Assembly was dissolved when the dominion became the 10th province of Canada. It was formed by servants within a direct subordinate to the British Government in London.
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4 The Case Edward v Canada
Edward v Canada is one of the most popular legislative struggles in Canada's history. Additionally, it is also called the Person Case.
In the research of women´s suffrage in Canada, the problem had been mentioned already; a woman was not included in the term person. In Acts, one has been referred to as a citizen and a person or a man. However, this was never meant to be a woman, at least as far as electoral laws and private property laws were concerned. These few laws had been already changed throughout history, but some examples remained until 1929.
One of the latest examples is the 1920 law, the Dominion Act, which gave women the right to vote at the federal level. It also gave women the power to represent and hold the office in parliament. However, this law did not apply to the Senate, since the House of Senate in Canada was under The British North America Act.
Edward v Canada is one of the most critical cases of Canadian Justice, which records the society´s progress towards liberal values.
4.1 The Background of the Case
The Person Case started when Emily Murphy, in 1916, advanced the court in the province of Alberta, where she attempted to help with the testimony of a woman accused of prostitution, mainly for the reason Murphy was an MLA graduate.
However, Murphy had been taken out of the courtroom because the judge could not accept her testimony due to her social and economic status. Moreover, according
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to the court, they were an inappropriate witness because of gender (Sharpe &
McMahon, 2008).
The idea to be the interloper invading men area was occurred unacceptable, from the point of view, that many acts supported men and disadvantaged women. One of the first cases for Murphy was the dowry circumstance. In most cases, the property still appeared to the men, and the woman did not receive any compensation after the divorce. In 1917, the situation turned around, mainly thanks to Murphy, who pushed for the new law of the Dower Act, which gave the woman the right to a former husband's property of 1/3, which was to secure the future life of the woman and their children ("Emily Murphy — Famou5", 2019).
At this point, after the witness case, Emily Murphy decided to appeal to the
Minister of Justice, Charles Wilson Cross, who could be able to clarify whether a woman had been able to serve as a relevant person in court. The request to a female magistrate in Edmonton was already in process when Minister of Justice,
Wilson Cross, replied he agreed with Emily Murphy and her statement that the woman had been qualified enough to participate in the court. Thus Murphy became the first judge in Alberta and the first judge in Canada.
However, women approached the judicial system was not amicable for a lot of politicians, judges and lawyers. Eardley Jackson, a lawyer, accused Judge Murphy due to her incompetence to perform this service under the British North America
Act of 1867, which did not determine a woman as a worthwhile person. In 1917, due to multiple objections, against Judge Murphy, a court decision was announced in which the Alberta Supreme Court found women as persons, thus defining the
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interpretation of the 1867 law as erroneous (Sharpe & McMahon, 2008). Women in the court were approved to be a qualified person to hold the office of the judge.
Judge Murphy examined to advance the English common law in 1919 when her name appeared on the candidate list for the Senate after the death of Senator Peter
Talbot in December 1919 (Sharpe & McMahon, 2008).8 The Prime Minister of
Canada, Robert Gordon, then decided, under the British North America Act, to remove Murphy from the list as a candidate who did not meet Senator requirements; women were not sufficiently qualified to practice the law in the Senate.
The whole situation went out of control when almost 500,000 signatures of a petition appeared in the Senate to defend Murphy´s case (Sharpe & McMahon,
2008). In this instance, when Canada granted women the right to vote at the federal level and women's rights negotiations were underway in other provinces, the adverse decision of the Prime Minister Border and the opposition leader
Mackenzie was due to the 1867 law, not because of unwillingness or perhaps a negative attitude to Judge Murphy. It was, therefore, the British North America
Act, which did not confer this authority to women. Five hundred thousand petitions flooded the following Prime Minister Meighen from various societies
(Sharpe & McMahon, 2008).
This scenario arises the skepticism of the institution itself when debates of the
Senate of Canada started in the 1920s (Sharpe & McMahon, 2008). Many people criticized the Senate as a useless body of the upper chamber, same as the Grain
Growers Guide called for its abolition. Judge Murphy was not a problem of the
8 Senate appointments are made on the basis of geographic areas and also political allegiances.
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Senate, but rather Canadian citizens did not know what senator´s job is, thus
Murphy could be the leading voice of the people in the Senate. On September 15,
Prime Minister Meighen appointed the prominent Edmonton lawyer, William
Griesbach, to fill the Senate vacancy for province Alberta (Sharpe & McMahon,
2008).
The Prime Minister's decision was opposed, and Murphy had no choice but to turn to the Supreme Court. Her classification of the problem was not only about being unable to be a senator but a problem as a whole if a woman could hold the senator´s office. The question of this type had to be submitted and proposed by a group of at least five citizens
4.2 Famous 5
The group of the Famous 5 women was significant in fields of their carrier life; advocacy of women's and children's rights in Canada, and especially in Alberta, and above mentioned signed up to the Supreme Court to answer the question;
“Does the word “persons” in Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?” (Sharpe & McMahon, 2008).
The members of the well-known group were Henrietta Muir Edwards, a researcher and activist on women's rights, who also chaired the National Council of Women's Legal Committee (Brennan, 2001). Nellie McClung was another personality involved in the process. McClung was primarily an activist and later a politician, the only woman who was a representative in the League of Nations in
1918 (Hallett, 2008). Above all, she has been known for her presence in Manitoba, where she actively participated in the struggle for women's suffrage and was elected
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to the provincial Alberta Legislature Assembly in 1921 (Hallett, 2008). Louise
McKinney, a politician and founder of the WCTU office in Alberta, had actively participated and worked in the Christian women's union in Alberta, as well as being one of the first two women to be elected to the British Legislative Assembly
(Brennan, 2001). Irene Parlby was a politician who held the post of First President of the United Farm Women of Alberta. In 1921 she was elected to the provincial council for the United Farmers of Alberta, thereby becoming the second woman to represent the legislation of the British Empire (Brennan, 2001). Last, Emily
Murphy had been the significant person in this group, who started this legislative case.
To this day, there are many views on this group, which are highly controversial.
From the point of view, it has been controversial, due to their campaign for voting rights, where they were often associated only with the middle class and the origin of the European, white settlers. Alternatively, perhaps the law that later assumed the right of sterilization, the Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act, which advocates sterilized people who were physically, mentally and financially incapable of managing their lives and thus the lives of their future children (Sharpe & McMahon 2008).9
On the contrary, most of the views tend to be positive, in the context of women's right to vote, which was so necessary, and it was these ladies who were not afraid to stand up in society, advocate their rights and defend those who did not. In general, it attached great value to the legislative changes that have resulted from them; changes in the aforementioned electoral legislation support for child care or
9 The Liberal MLA Nellie McClung was a prominent campaigner for sterilization of "simple- minded young girls." Another suffragist, Irene Parlby was afraid of mentally deficient people and its growing population rate.
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property rights. However, it should be noted that these regulations were followed by women's and women's optics, which meant many unpleasant changes for men and thus negative responses from the perspective of the public spending of the province, which suddenly increased on health care and education as well as child welfare (Sharpe & McMahon 2008).
4.3 The Path of the Struggle for Legislative Change
The Legislative Problem of electing a female senator lay in the British North
America Act, 1867 (BNA Act), later renamed the Constitution Act, 1867. The law, created by the United Kingdom Government in 1867, which united the 3 British
Empire colonies into one country under the name Canada, and among other businesses, determined which citizen of that country is the legitimate holder of the right to vote (Sharpe & McMahon 2008).
According to Section 24 of the BNA Act, only a qualified citizen can be elected to the Senate. The conditions are as follows: a person aged 30 and over, a property owner of at least $ 4,000, a resident of the province of candidacy (Marshall &
Cruickshank, 2006). Furthermore, the Governor General has the power to appoint, in the name of the Queen, qualified Senator candidates, subject to a qualified summoned candidate becoming a member of the Upper House of Parliament, a member of the Senate (Marshall & Cruickshank, 2006)
As already mentioned, the problem in the following word had been in a concept
"person", which did not precisely specify whether it meant to be a woman or a man but had been considered to be a law specifically related to men from 1867.
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Thus, since it had been interpreted according to the legislative provisions of 1867 when men dominated the sphere ("Supreme Court of Canada", n.d.).
In 1923, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, known as Mackenzie King, asked Senator Archibald McCoig to propose an amendment to the British North
America Act that included women (Marshall & Cruickshank, 2006). However, the draft amendment had never been filed.
Section 24 of the BNA Act, according to activists and suffragist, had become a government excuse not to elect a woman to a senator office. On 27 August 1927, the group Famous 5 decided to submit a request to the Canadian Government to define the word "person" in the BNA Act, by letter, where Famous 5 asked whether the Supreme Court of Canada could decide on two issues (Marshall &
Cruickshank, 2006). The first question, “Is power vested in the Governor-General in Council of Canada, or the Parliament of Canada, or either of them, to appoint a female to the Senate of Canada?” (Marshall, 2019). The second question, “Is it constitutionally possible for the Parliament of Canada under the provisions of the
British North America Act, or otherwise, to make provision for the appointment of a female to the Senate of Canada?” (Marshall, 2019).
The Minister of Justice, Ernest Lapointe, expressed that they had been right of every woman to know the right interpretation of the law from the Supreme Court of
Canada. Therefore, the Supreme Court was asked to consider the following question very carefully concerning the word "person" in Article 24 of the BNA Act, as it affects the issue of gender equality before the law (Marshall & Cruickshank, 2006).
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Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Francis Alexander Anglin, and Judges Lyman
Duff, Pierre-Basile Mignault, John Lamont, and Robert Smith, unanimously agreed on the decision of the Supreme Court that women have not been considered as a "persons" under the BNA Act. For this reason, women were not able to work and hold the position of senator. The defense of the Supreme Court's judgment was, the law must be interpreted according to the year of adoption, which meant that in 1928 the BNA Act was interpreted according to the year in which it came into force, which was in 1867 (Marshall & Cruickshank, 2006). It was generally accepted that the BNA Act included only men as a "persons", which was supported by the situation due to the situation in 1867 when women had no voting rights and could not hold political offices. Thus, according to the
BNA Act, it was a fact that women at that time were not part of the political system and therefore could not relate to the laws of political order. The nomination of a woman to the Senate was therefore illegal ("Supreme Court of Canada", n.d.).
For Famous 5, this decision was not final, as there was still a possibility to appeal to a higher authority, the Privy Council of England. The Privy Council of England was a group of England's sovereign advisers, consisting of members from the
House of Lords, the House of Commons, prominent church leaders, military leaders, diplomats, and judges.
On October 18, 1929, The Privy Council of England commented the defeat of
Famous 5, regarding the analysis of the word "person", whether it contained both sexes or represented only men (Marshall & Cruickshank, 2006). Lord Sankey delivered the judgment on behalf of the Privy Council. The Council stated that the
BNA Act, its section 24, containing the word "person" has been included both
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sexes. Lord Sankey also mentioned that excluding women from political, public offices had been a past that has no place in the present or the future. Thus, women were eligible for the position in the Senate. One of the main factors was, the question asked by the Privy Council of England, why women should not be included in the BNA Act. The answer was inadequate, as it has been not possible to apply the law according to its translation, which is identified by the time of issue of the law (Marshall & Cruickshank, 2006).
The Famous 5 has contributed to a change in knowledge of the 1867 Legislative
Law, which allowed women to apply for political positions as senators. Judge
Murphy was still interested in the senator's seat to become the first women in the
Senate. However, on 15 February 1930, Cairine Wilson of Montreal, Ottawa became the first senator in Canada (Marshall & Cruickshank, 2006).
The Person Case achieved a change in understanding and interpretation of the
BNA Act 1867. These changes had far-reaching implications in further decision- making on the recognition of women as "persons". First, this decision meant that women´s rights could no longer be denied based on a narrow interpretation of the law. Secondly, women could continue to work in public political areas of offices, as well as to serve as judges. They have become an indispensable part of the
Upper and Lower Houses of Parliament (Marshall & Cruickshank, 2006).
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5 The Suffrage Movement in Quebec
The Francophone Province, a former colony of French-speaking Catholics, Quebec, was a separate province where women till 1940 still did not have voting rights within their province. However, women could vote into the federal elections under the Act, which was passed on June 1, 1920. Nevertheless, their opinion was undesirable, and the right to vote from the opposition of most of the society was inappropriate, according to legislators. Due to the presence of Catholic Church and its priests feared of the involvement of women to the politics, which would bring the demise of the traditional family, the French Canadian authorities assured the protection of women and traditional family direction (Tremblay, 2010).
Women were leaders in public education, charities, health associations, and partners in a family business, their participation in political life and government were less important. This disregard was in the presence also because there were no laws explicitly designed to prevent females from writing, working, or conducting business. On the contrary, the situation of enforcing legal rights from which women were legitimately deprived indicated a level of participation in political life within the right to vote.
One of the critical issues of Canadian legislative and electoral law is the understanding of the deprivation of voting rights in Quebec, which used to be an exceptional example of freedom in the world at the beginning of the 19th century.
However, society began to decline in a different direction and required social transformation. The Victorian era was one of the transformations that required the separation of the sexes, thus putting the female gender into the private sphere.
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Others included industrialization and urbanization. One of the other factual remarks was the evidence of the tension in Britain-French relations that culminated in the provision of the Union (the Act of Union).10
Furthermore, Monsignor Bourget, Bishop of Montreal, appeared in the Francophone province, advocating ultramontanism and thus promoting the society of the state and the Church, and hence its superiority.11 The newly established hierarchy of society was in contradiction with the liberal values of the Enlightenment. The consequence of this resolution was to limit civil rights, especially among the sexes, which did not correspond to the values and freedom of modern society, thus transforming society into a state aimed at preserving the protection of French
Canadian society (Tremblay, 2010).
5.1 The Women´s Position before the Dominion Election Act
In the Province of Quebec, formerly Lower Canada, women have been able to vote since 1791 under the Constitutional Act of 1791. This law was based on a single definition of "person". In this period of the French Revolution and the general Enlightenment, it had been assumed that a woman is a member of society and was considered as a legitimate person.
In 1774 the province of Quebec, the Quebec Act, was created as a designated area of the former French colony, part of Canada and the British Empire (Cleverdon,
1950). However, in 1791, the Constitutional Act divided the province into the two
10 The Act of Union, July 1840, by the British Parliament, proclaimed 10 February 1841. Act united the colonies of Upper Canada and Lower Canada, thus creating the Province of Canada under one government. 11 Strong emphasis on papal authority and on centralization of the church within government and society
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parts, Lower Canada and Upper Canada, because the British Parliament wanted to avoid conflicts between the French and British communities (Cleverdon, 1950).
Each of these new provinces had independent political entities, including a governor, a legislative council appointed by the London Parliament, and a provincial parliament that was elected by people based on their property rights and property ownership. The right to vote was enacted form on the Constitutional
Act, i.e. the criterion of age and property ownership, which included tenants. In this phase of the law the gender was not a norm for the exclusion of a person from the right to vote, but only an income statement that was below the threshold.
Among the voters, there had been the participation of women, especially wealthy women, married women, or single, which had access to the property, and was considered as a taxpayer. Thus, women in Lower Canada, who owned property, demanded their equal voting rights due to the situation of women who were not tied to the British Common Law that barred women from voting in Upper Canada
(Tremblay, 2010).
The 1820 election gave women the power to participate in elections in Bedford and Trois-Rivières (Cleverdon, 1950). However, as early as 1827, protests against female voters and the overall legal participation and validity of their participation took place. In the two years, 1828 and 1830, many petitions had been asking for elections and their results to be abolished based on women's participation and their legal voting rights, thus making all elections in which women participate invalidated (Cleverdon, 1950).
The subsequent struggle was the Election Act, 1834 which is mentioned in the
Chapter 3.2., and it explains the additional changes in voting rights from the
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period and subsequent developments under the reformer and prime minister
Baldwin-La Fontaine.
Following years, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union founded another branch in Montreal in 1883 (Cleverdon, 1950). The other women's suffrage group was The Montreal Local Council of Women, founded in 1893, based on emerging legal gaps between a woman and a man (Cleverdon, 1950). One of these changes was the 1899 amendment to the Schools Act, which forbade women to hold school board positions and to participate in administrative activities in the education system in any way (Tremblay, 2010). Their right to vote in school elections and to direct the academy as an educational institution remained in the hands of women through another amendment discussed in the same year in 1899.
Some women had the right to vote in local elections, but their vote had been considered legitimate in the municipalities only when the community proved it
(Tremblay, 2010).
The beginning of the 20th century in Quebec had been unfavorable to any legislative attempts to change the spread of voting rights for women, despite the efforts of the associations mentioned above dealing with the change, or even the emerging or activities of the province itself. One of the highly active organizations was the Montreal Suffrage Association, which petitioned for voting rights for women in the province and federal level. The campaign was mostly organized by an English-speaking population, which resulted in many misunderstandings of debates with the people in the French-speaking province, and thus had little effect.
Despite this, MSA had spread its ideas through the Herald and Daily Telegraph,
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where they had attempted to address the broader public with their election agitation
(Cleverdon, 1950).
Despite all the efforts of women in other provinces to win their franchise, women in Quebec were unable to unite and, under the weight of the Catholic Faith, it was utterly impossible to overcome any obstacles to future reforms in the province, despite the federal government's announcement of the following suffrage.
5.2 Women´s Suffrage in Quebec after Federation Franchise
Between 1919 and 1922, the Montreal Women’s Club took over the effort to achieve a political franchise at provincial form, as it existed already has been guaranteed in the national platform by the federal government. In 1920, Joseph-
Séraphin-Aimé Ashby presented a declaration on the Legislative Assembly of
Quebec proposing that the government examine the possibility of women´s provincial franchise (Cleverdon, 1950). The group of followers of Joseph-Séraphin-
Aimé Ashby was utterly unsuccessful, and in 1927 the Marchand Bill was introduced, which sponsored women's franchise and, though defeated, opened the door for the other
14 bills that followed (Tremblay, 2010).
At the beginning of 1922, the Fédération Nationale Saint-Jean-Baptiste created the
Provincial Franchise Committee, which demanded the right to vote for women throughout Quebec. This requirement was shared by the other groups trying to destroy the provincial ban, one of which was the Montreal Regional Council, the
Montreal Women’s Club, and the Club Libéral des Femmes (Tremblay, 2010). The
Provincial Franchise Committee had two leaders; that was Lacoste-Gérin Lajoie, who was Presidency of the Francophones and Mrs Walter Lyman, who was in
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charge of the Presidency of the Anglophone, and whose secretariat was Idola Saint-
Jean. Although their primary goal was to gain the right to vote in the province, the committee presented itself as apolitical and devoted itself to education and informal public education. This education focused on the public and political representatives about the abilities of women in Quebec and their future opportunities to participate in elections. The committee presented this message during its first interaction with Quebec legislative authorities. In July 1920, new
Liberal Prime Minister of Quebec province, Louis-Alexandre Taschereau, was elected and during the election, he had been presenting himself in favour of women franchise (Cleverdon, 1950). In February 1922, a delegation four hundred women from Montreal, including Thérèse Casgrain, Carrie Derrick, Lady
Drummond, Marie Lacoste-Gérin-Lajoie, and Idola Saint-Jean, made an appointment with new PM Taschereau in Quebec City (Cleverdon, 1950). During the meeting with
Premier Taschereau, the delegation presented its ideas, but Taschereau switched his opinions and claimed, that women of Quebec had been without the voting right and this situation was about to stay same in the future. Unluckily, Prime
Minister Taschereau was in office until 1936 (Tremblay, 2010).
Since 1922, when representatives of the suffrage associations met with the prime minister, who expressed his negative attitude in the case of women's voting rights, the organizations had been in a state of stagnation until 1927. In the same year, negotiations were held at the Supreme Court in Canada on whether women had been considered or not as a "person" by the British North America Act (Chapter 4
Edward v Canada). The court re-instigated organizations and individuals strength to win the right to vote, especially in 1929, when the Privy Council declared
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women as a person. As a result, the historical legal breakthrough turned out women's candidates to the Senate, and in most provinces, women were also recognized for other qualified positions that had been initially considered a male domain.
However, this did not apply to women in Quebec, as there was still a ban on provincial elections, both passive and active.
This legal lapse was due in part to the domination of the Catholic Church in politics in the Quebec province, as opposed to others, where dominant
Protestantism. An example of the influence of the Catholic Church and electoral rights is also France and Italy, where women received their rights in 1945. On the other side, countries dominated by Protestantism such as Australia, the United
States, or New Zealand were much effective in granting women's rights. One example of the Catholic Church in Quebec was Archbishop Bégin, Quebec City, who in July 1920, in a letter addressed to Prime Minister Taschereau, mentioned the impending danger of feminism as a threat to the family and the status of man
(Tremblay, 2010).
One of the evidence that the Edward v Canada case encouraged suffragists in
Canada has been the fact that in 1927 a new Canadian Alliance for Women
Suffrage in Quebec was set up under the leadership of Idola Saint-Jean, who had previously acted as a secretary in the Provincial Franchise Committee (Cleverdon,
1950). The reason why Saint-Jean decided to resign as a secretary in the Provincial
Franchise Committee was for dissatisfaction in her position and her ambitions when she persuaded the post of president of the French section of the Provincial Franchise
Committee (Cleverdon, 1950). Another reason was incentives from working-class women, who were not primarily represented by this time, but mainly women from
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the middle class. The visibility of the alliance was then ensured by participating in federal elections in 1930, where she ran as an independent candidate, although she had no real chance of winning. Nevertheless, it received 3.9 percent of the vote, which provided it with sufficient publicity and thus increased interest in women's voting rights and public policy (Cleverdon, 1950).
The Canadian Alliance for Women's Suffrage in Quebec and the League for Women's
Rights were two groups that contributed most to women's suffrage. However, their program was broader, especially in the social and economic spheres. One of the points was, for example, obtaining rights to maintain a personal bank account by a woman, or increase the minimum wage. However, despite the same agenda of the program promoted by both organizations, they had completely different strategies.
The League for Women's Rights was regarded as a nonpartisan organization using mainly posters and propaganda letters, while the Canadian Alliance for Women's
Suffrage in Quebec was considered more radical in terms of conducting demonstrations or public political debates. This position set an alliance in a linear relationship to American suffragist’s practices and the earliest British suffragettes.
Thus, in 1929, The League for Women Rights under the leadership of Thérès
Casgrain took over the primary responsibility for obtaining the voting rights
(Tremblay, 2010).
In 1938, Thérèse Casgrain was invited to a conference of the Women's Institutes of
Quebec to discuss the issue of the city-rural segregation and the necessary support for rural women to achieve franchise. However, the primary support was still the city of Montreal, which offered enormous support (Tremblay, 2010). Casgrain was invited, in 1938, to the Liberation Congress of the Party to present her draft
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law on electoral law (Tremblay, 2010). In 1938, a new situation occurred when, re-election after 16 years of Prime Minister Louis-Alexandre Taschereau's (until
1936), led by the new leader, Joseph Adélard Godbout. The suffrage support was manifested in the 1939 elections, when the Liberal Party won, which supported women's suffrage, despite the relations and public support of the Catholic Church that the party received. Prime Minister Godbout in 1940 stated on a legislative assemblage for suffrage, at which point the Catholic Church defended its position against suffrage by four crucial points; the right to vote is against family unity, women would be at risk in elections, most women in Quebec do not want to vote.
The main political catholic reason against suffrage was the argument that political equality in the economic and social spheres can be achieved beyond political participation, especially by women-led organizations that represent women's opinion
(Baillargeon, 2014).
Prime Minister Godbout endorsed women's suffrage by introducing a new law on the extension of the political franchise in the Assembly on April 9, 1940, which included women (Cleverdon, 1950). The bill was endorsed on 25 April of the same year and entered into force immediately (Cleverdon, 1950). One of the advocates of guaranteeing women's suffrage was the prospect of a social environment that women understand better than men, which included public health, social security and education, as well as family law.
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6 The Franchise of Indigenous Peoples
Within the territory of Canada, there are three original nations, divided by language and by location. The term Indigenous peoples or differently Aboriginal peoples refer to people of First Nation, Métis and Inuit. Inuit reside primarily in the North of Canada included the Arctic zone and in the area known under the name Inuit
Nunangat, which is the most traditional territory.
Another already mentioned nation is the Métis population which, with a gradual change, transformed into a society of mixed European and Indigenous origin, thus brings them into noticeable contact with the rest of Canada, especially in the prairies of Manitoba and Ontario and the cities, where most of the population lives. The last population is the First Nations, which inhibit primarily in the Arctic and the South of the Arctic. Furthermore, these Indigenous peoples are distinguished according to the historical and current areas where they live: Arctic, Subarctic,
Northwest Coast, Plateau, Plains, and Eastern Woodlands.
6.1 The Legislative Recognitions of Aboriginal Peoples
Indigenous peoples of Canada have many rights depended on their recognition by the Canadian legal system, which examines every community and nation differently.
There is diversity among Aboriginal peoples; some have certain privileges provided by the federal government as annual cash payment, some exercise more control over heritage. However, the legal system accepts property rights to ancestral lands and its resources with self-govern institutions within their nation and its land.
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The following problems in society in the 19th century definitively separated the aboriginals from the foreigners. The constitution has not recognized Indigenous peoples nor laws such as "persons" members of society and has the legal status of a
Canadian citizen. However, legislation has offered the possibility to become a citizen recognized by legislation subject to assimilation into Canadian society. This possibility was ensured by the Gradual Civilization Act of 1857, to which the amendment to the Act came into force in 1869, known as the Act for the Gradual
Enfranchisement of Indians (Leslie, 2016).
6.1.1 The Indian Act
The Aboriginal population in Canada is subdivided into two subgroups under the
Indian Act, 1876; Status Indians and Non-Status Indians, which is further distinguished under the Legislative Law and bound by Canada's citizenship and the Crown.12 Status Indians held registered individuals under the Indians register with the identification card, also known as the status card. Non-Status Indians are
Indigenous peoples not identified by the Canadian Federal Government. Canadian legislation recognizes the term “Indian” which refers to legally defined identities under the Indian Act. Indian act declared the rights of a man but had been not recognized by the word “person” until he gave up his Indian status. On the contrary, women were not acknowledged for the rights, even on the evidence of the matriarchal system in the individual clans.
In 1906, an amendment to the law came out that clearly states that men and women with Indian status are "non-person" under the word "person" whose meaning did not
12 In a monarchy, the Crown is an abstract concept that represents the state and its government. In Canada, a constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the source of non-partisan sovereign authority and an integral part of the legislative, executive and judicial powers that govern the country.
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include Indians. Thus, the status "non-person" has become, in the form of Status Indian, an attribute for the term "person" within their status. By doing so, Indigenous peoples were expelled from official professions, contracting, and other situations that included the necessary condition to be "person", including electoral participation.
Subsequently, the citizenship initiative was presented as a voluntary action whereby the Indigenous population renounces its legal status being under the
Status Indian, thus giving up its culture and benefits from the government. One of the advantages offered by Canadian citizenship was education, the right to participate in elections and access to alcohol. However, this Indian voluntary abandonment act was not sufficient; thus a new law was passed in 1920, An Act to Amend the Indian
Act, to allow the withdrawal Indian´s status, based on a career or university degree.
This law continued to deny the right to reside in the aboriginal´s reserve, thereby helping to dilute the previously preserved Indigenous peoples' culture. It is quite clear from the statement of the then Minister Duncan Campbell Scott, the Deputy
Superintendent of Indian Affairs, that this deliberation and assimilation of society help with the elimination of Indian status as their culture and subsequent political clashes. The benefit of the whole society often defended the law.
6.1.2 The Legislative Changes after Franchise
In 1969, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau introduced the new bill White Paper, which immediately granted equal citizenship to all Indigenous peoples of Canada, while abolishing the benefits of contributions and heritage rights. The law was to bring communities, Indigenous peoples and Canadians, into equal legal conditions.
However, this bill proposal was rejected, especially by Indigenous peoples who did not want to lose their Status Indian and continued to feel guilty on the side of Canada,
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who in the past has done wrong with their nations and continued to deny it.
However, the bill did not dismiss the injustices and violence against Indigenous peoples but did not include all the details of the government's and nation's behavior.
This proposal was intended to serve as a settlement and deletion of these activists partially. The bill was withdrawn in 1970 (Leslie, 2016).
The Constitution of Canada protects the rights of Indigenous peoples, and since
2008 they have been developing to a population of First Nations people treated by the Canadian Human Rights Act (Leslie, 2016). This law merely divides residents into Status and Non-Status; their status in the law is already sent above. Indeed, the status of Indians in society has become controversial because of the dispute over their rights, property and resources which have been the subject of disputes in many provinces, also due to the frequent finding of valuable crude materials such as oil and gas, which are being mined. This problem is connected with the position of the population against itself and its overall recognition. Now, all Aboriginal peoples in
Canada are under the Constitution Act, 1982, which protects them by Section 35 and ensures their rights within various contracts between communities and the
Government of Canada (Leslie, 2016). The UN Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples guarantees the rights of all Indigenous peoples whose countries had signed this agreement, which primarily happened in 2007 when it was officially released (Leslie, 2016). However, Canada is an example of a country where there are still disputes between Indigenous peoples and residents of Canada from other countries. Based on these society´s problems, Canada signed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples agreement in 2016, where it primarily objected to land and national resources, which were withdrawn and returned to the
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Indigenous peoples (Leslie, 2016). However, the Constitution Act 1982, in particular,
Section 35, ensures their legal status and rights.13
6.2 Aboriginal Peoples and the Franchise
The voting rights of Indigenous peoples are associated with colonization and the subsequent development of a society that has had a negative relationship with Indians from the outset. In the context of individual events and the breakdown of women's voting rights in Canada, Indigenous women were at the same position as non-original population. Unfortunately, after women gained franchise, most women´s organizations were not concerned with the unfinished process of suffrage based on race. This process of suffrage and gaining voting rights was both voluntary and involuntary, following the renunciation of Indigenous Peoples' status in favor of acquiring
Canadian citizenship, thereby legitimizing participation in elections (Sangster, 2018).
The exclusion based on colonialism and race was visible in franchise history, especially during the facing contradiction between county´s wartime process and fighting against Hitler, when fighting for humanity but in the same time being the racial intolerance aggressor. Indigenous women did not see the enfranchisement as an opportunity of equality and fairness but as a question of whether be Indian or proper citizen of Canada.
6.2.1 Background of Following Events
It is important to note that the Indians were not explicitly forbidden to participate in the pre-1867 confederation time, but that it was their manifest of voluntary distance and isolation from the newly arrived population of Europe and their traditional way
13 Constitution without requiring approval from Britain
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of living they wanted to apply to the Indigenous peoples (Leslie, 2016). As an example, the province of Nova Scotia or British Columbia had not explicitly forbidden the participation of Indigenous peoples, but it has the same legal order as for any other occupant: must be of a certain age, a British citizen, and possess the property of specific value as well as the status taxpayer. Thus, the explicit participation of the original population had not been prohibited, but the condition of being a British citizen is already discriminatory. Another prerequisite for maintaining voting rights was also financial autonomy, which the Indians did not achieve due to the benefactions from the Crown, and thus they were automatically excluded from participation in the elections.
In 1857, The Gradual Civilization Act was already approved, which guaranteed voting rights to the First Nations men. The condition was the assimilation of the original entrepreneurship into Canadian-British society (Leslie, 2016). The nation of Métis was an exception, and their conditions for granting the right to vote were set equal to the conditions of others in society, so they had to meet only the necessary qualification. In contrast, the Inuit nation was disqualified from voter turnout based on the nation's position, which predominantly inhabited the northern part of the country that was not under state control, but the Hudson Bay Company.14
After 1867, the BNA Act, federal elections were influenced by a decision based on the granting of voting rights and electoral system at the provincial level. This arrangement made the Indigenous peoples inadequate for the right to vote and was automatically disqualified under the conditions mentioned in Chapter 3.2.
Meanwhile, the Indian Act, 1876, which has been described above with its
14 In that time HBC was fur trading business company
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additional commands, has come into force in legislation. In 1885, Prime Minister
Sir John A. MacDonald presented the Electoral Franchise Act, which has been discussed in detail in Chapter 3.2., the imposition of federal voting rights on all
Indigenous peoples of Canada under the same conditions that every British subject must fulfil. However, along with granting universal suffrage for women, universal suffrage for Indians had not been passed by the Parliament, and instead, a new proposal is emerging that excludes all Indigenous peoples from voting rights. In the same year of 1885, Premier introduced a new electoral law proposal in Ontario, where it gave the right to vote to all men of Indigenous peoples, on condition that they meet the same qualifications as other provincial residents along with the abandonment of Status Indian (Leddy, 2016). It was necessary to be the owner of the property at a particular value, which indicated the renunciation of traditional values of Indigenous peoples and assimilation to Western society and its way of living. In this case, it was the Métis nation who lives in Eastern Canada. This legal act was revoked in 1898.
The thinking behind the act of franchise prohibition was, uncivilized Indigenous peoples have exclusive rights and protection. They do not deserve to participate in the Canadian´s white society when they do not belong to it. However, once they are assimilated with the new situation of society in Canada, they can receive full citizenship.
Before the First World War, the assimilation of society was not achieved, and the vast majority of the Indigenous peoples refused to give up Indian status, and their heritage. However, with the start of the First World War, the situation was changing, with many Indians volunteering in military service. By this act, in 1917, they were
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granted federal election rights until the end of the war, and demobilization of Indians.
After the First World War, there was no development of Indian rights, and the aboriginals were still excluded from the turnout at both the federal level and the provincial.
In 1942 did the federal government set up a specific committee, the House of
Commons Special Committee on Reconstruction and Re-Establishment, to rebuild the Canadian war and post-war society (Blair, 2005). The Committee agreed on the resolution that the nations of Indigenous peoples are the most neglected society. This decision led to the creation of the Special Joint Committee on the
Indian Act in 1946 (Leddy, 2016). Indigenous peoples and their leaders had come together to discuss the state of their peoples and future integration into Canadian society. The Committee did not come to a united view of obtaining federal voting right under the fear of losing their Status Indian and thus obtaining taxpayer status.
In 1948, the Committee formed up a report recommending and was agreeing on the gradual integration into society, not assimilation, with the consensus on the legalization of voting rights in federal elections (Leddy, 2016).
As mentioned above, Inuit live in the Arctic parts of Canada. Due to its location, the Canadian Indigenous policy did not include the Inuit nation under the jurisdiction until 1924 (Blair, 2005). In the following years, the fight came to victory and Inuit were exempted from the Indian Act in 1930, and therefore none of the statutes applied to them (Blair, 2005). However, in 1939, the Supreme
Court's decision to remove the Inuit from the law was abolished, and the Inuit nation fell again under the Indian Act (Blair, 2005). Nevertheless, the law was amended in 1951 so that the Inuit was no longer included in it. In the provinces of
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Quebec, Northwest Territories and later Nunavut, they were official "persons" who had the same powers as other citizens (Blair, 2005).
However, the federal jurisdiction took the Committee's decision from 1948 and continued to be discussed with the political legislators in the House of Representatives, wherein 1950 the Liberal cabinet of Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent with the government and deputies discussed the extension of the right to vote (Blair, 2005).
The government and the House agreed that in the coming elections of 1953,
Indians could not participate in the elections, primarily because of the fear of the impact of this decision on election results (Blair, 2005). Also Parliament Members were asking themselves if Aboriginals have the knowledge of parties they exist in the federal sphere, so would be competent to vote.
The situation stayed unchanged until elections in 1957 which brought a change with the victory of John Diefenbaker, Progressive Conservative, when he first appointed into the office the Status Indian subject, James Gladstone, in the province of Alberta
(Blair, 2005). According to Diefenbaker, it was essential to present a bill on equal rights among the citizens of Canada and their universal suffrage. In 1958 he came up with a proposal the Canadian Bill of Rights. The Native Voice, Indigenous association, claimed positive approach to the extension of the federal voting rights, as “the Indian Magna Carta”. In 1960, March 31, the Canada Election Act was passed, which in Section 14 gives voting rights to Indigenous peoples (Leddy,
2016). This legislative decision meant the definitive grant of voting rights at the federal level to Indigenous peoples, without voluntarily giving up their historical roots and giving them Indian status. However, despite all the efforts of
Diefenbaker to equal society, the Indigenous peoples were not entirely convinced
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that the election option would preserve their status. Subsequent elections to the federal parliament were therefore low in participation, also based on the distance that these voters would have to overcome in order to reach ballots for the polls as the polling stations were not located in place of residence. For example, the Inuit did not participate in the federal elections until 1962, even the fact they had voting rights since 1950 due to the absent Arctic ballot box (Blair, 2005).
6.2.2 Provincial Enfranchise
The exception was the Métis nation, which could vote in the provincial elections if it reached the same conditions as other Manitoba residents. An exception to the provinces was Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, where the two provinces never forbade the provincial voting right to the Indigenous peoples.
However, after World War II, the restrictions on the rights of Indigenous peoples have been substantially reduced, even based on their active presence during the war.
The first provincial voting right was granted to the Indians in 1949 by the British
Columbia Province, followed by Manitoba in 1952, Ontario 1954, Saskatchewan along with the Yukon and Northwest Territories 1960, Prince Edward Island 1963,
New Brunswick 1963, Alberta 1965, and as the Last Province Quebec in 1969 (Leddy,
2016).
6.3 Rights of Aboriginal Women
Women with Indian status who have married non-Indians had lost their status under the 1869 Act for the Gradual Enfranchisement of Indians. Indian women were by far the largest group of Indians to lose their status as a result of these provisions by the Indian Act introduced in 1951, Section 12. This policy of enfranchisement
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called marrying-out. For Status Indian women, the history of the vote is far more complex. Until 1951, they were excluded from participating in band council elections. Indian women, however, were not universally excluded from the national franchise (Ladner & McCrossan, 2007). Women who marry a man with Indian status, who is from another clan or nation, are automatically transferred to the husband's nation, along with their descendants. Thus, the women of Indigenous peoples became the legal subject of the man, according to the norms and standards of the then western society in Canada under British Common Law (Blair, 2005).
The marriage changes were unchangeable until the woman resolved as an Indian.
Thus, the revision of its Indian status did not apply even when it became a widow; conversely, if a non-aboriginal woman married a man with Indian status, she was automatically granted that status and was registered under the Indian Act. This policy of marrying-out enfranchised involuntarily women, which in the same time lost the Indians status with privileges as band members. This decision of marrying someone no Indian meant that women could not hold or inherit property on the reserve, nor could access services. Between 1958 and 1968, an estimated 4,605
Indian women lost their Indian status as a result of these provisions (Blair, 2005).
At this point, it was a policy of assimilation, not a cultural unification of the nation.
The status of women was unequivocally bound to the husband until 1985 (Blair,
2005). With enfranchisement of man, his wife and children were automatically enfranchised (Ladner & McCrossan, 2007). However, in 1985 came a legislative change in the form of an amendment to the Indian Act, which lawfully declared more than 100 000 children as descendants of Indigenous peoples (Ladner &
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McCrossan, 2007). This decision remedied the legacy of Indian status, as well as the entire heritage of Indigenous peoples.
However, women of Indigenous peoples are still under persistent discrimination of human rights, especially when they leave their reservations and are interested in living outside off-reservation. Above all, it is about discrimination against property and custody. The Indian women are then further discriminated against in their reserves, which often took over the legal tendency of the 19th century, where women still face historical discriminatory conditions, such as property ownership.
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7 Conclusion
The struggle for Canada women’s suffrage in federal and provincial elections was marked by paradoxes, both in time and in legislative sphere. It was paradoxical in time because, in terms of suffrage, women were initially ahead of their times, then behind them. From the beginning of the Enlightenment and Liberal thinking, there was knowledge of a political-legal inequality between the sexes in society at the level of electoral participation. It is necessary to mention liberal feminism, which deals with the right to vote and participation of women and all persons in the context of equality.
With the appearance of women's voting rights and their active or passive participation, political development and economics after suffrage matters. It is crucial to ensure and provide fair liberal competition between sexes, where qualifications and human qualities prevail over gender.
The history of the issue of women and their participation in elections has been addressed as rebellions. These women, especially in Lower Canada, were persistent until the BNA Act, 1867, came to legalization, which determined who could take part in federal elections. This complex law had been often taken into account at the provincial level, where it was forbidden for women to participate in the election.
Women did not fulfil the necessary condition of being a "person", at least at the time of interpretation of this act. Several associations and organizations took up the struggle for voting rights, but only a few have managed to operate at the federal level across the country. It was instead in the hands of individual sub-organizations that have worked together on specific platforms, such as the enforcement of prohibition,
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which was the first impulse for women's entry into the public sphere. However, these struggles for rights included, first of all, only middle-class women. That was mainly
West European citizens, who had higher financial income. At the end of the 19th century, these organizations were growing, especially with a working class that wanted to achieve higher wages and security in the workplace, as well as better jobs.
Thus, the Canadian struggle for suffrage becomes much the struggle of classes, which primarily lies in two matters, namely nationalism and maternal feminism. For
Canadian society, the elementary preservation of the population is a woman that plays a significant role. Women were also considered as mothers of the nation; thus maternal feminism and nationalism became great thoughts in Canadian Society, and it was crucial to support women in the struggle to attain voting rights especially in the
Prairie Provinces. These included Manitoba, which was the first provinces to give women the right to vote in 1916, followed by others: Saskatchewan, Alberta and
British Columbia. In 1920, an Act to Confer Electoral Franchise Upon Women was passed, but it has been not included Indigenous women or other minorities. However this decision was not made by federal lawmakers, instead, it was based on provincial laws that did not give the right to aboriginals and other minorities. The cause of this social problem could be perceived by the organizations themselves, which have never focused on people other than West European origin. It was therefore clear racial discrimination, which is still evident in Canada, despite all legal efforts. Thus, the problem of women was not resolved, and the Edward v Canada, or Person Case, one of Canada's best-known legal cases, continued to deal with it. In 1929 women have achieved their status and have been recognized as women capable of performing positions so far requiring to be a "person (man)" under the BNA Act 1867. However,
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these benefits have not been widely approached by women, and it was primarily about equality based on liberal values.
The whole case of equality still did concern a lot of women, especially in Quebec, where some women living in Lower Canada between 1791 and 1849 were qualified for suffrage on the basis of property ownership. However, Quebec women gained voting rights relatively late, in 1940. This gap may have contributed to a powerful ideological apparatus. On the ideological level, it was based on maternal feminism. In
Quebec, it was also combined with French Canadian nationalism.
The only people, not including other national minorities, which were not considered and included as Canadian citizens were Indians, who, in order to perform professional positions (doctor, lawyer), had to surrender willingly, even involuntarily to their
Indian status. From the beginning, the political perspectives had diversity among ideologies, and its gender equality discussion went to the course of nationalist vision of white frontier settlers, who ignored Indigenous peoples and marginalized ethnic.
Most women of the suffrage movement in Canada were concern about their rights and ignored the need to enfranchise the entire nation. The issue of women in the
Indian community and reservations was utterly irrelevant, as these nations functioned on a matriarchal principle before the position rotated with the appearance of Europeans.
So it was about introducing something that had been long in the society of the
Indigenous peoples. These women gained the rights to participate in the election together with men in 1960.
Canadian suffrage movement technically ended in 1920 with an Act to Confer
Electoral Franchise Upon Women, when the majority of women gained their right to
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participate in elections. Until that point, it is quite clear that it was a shorter process of enlargement of the electoral rights that had taken place in the UK since 1832 and in the neighboring United States since 1848. Canada as a country alongside the United
States Civil Rights Guarantor and part of the British Empire was a completely different state because of its development of electoral rights. On the one hand, the very effort to grant rights to women is only at the beginning of its existence in 1877, a generation, two generations later than in the countries mentioned above. On the other hand, compared to the suffragists' activity in Canada, it is instead a mild, peaceful, civilized behavior that is accompanied by rationality and respect, which has gone without the example of demonstrations from the United States, and also without the violent demonstrations and speeches that are associated with British suffragettes.
Concerning the decision-making abilities of women to vote, it is more or less a balanced result between the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party, which dominated Canadian politics, especially with regard to provincial electoral rights. At the federal level, the Conservative Party's unambiguous victory was granted the voting rights to women at the time of the First World War. However, it was also an example of the voting rights of indigenous peoples, which the Conservatives Party has also pushed for.
The women´s suffrage in Canada and the development of voting rights within the nation set the course of Canadian society. The struggle of women positively changed society towards modern epoch. On the contrary, Canada still deals with racial and legal problems among nationalities and differences between sexes. Despite that, it was velvet transition which helped today women experienced liberal values and freedom.
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