Resolution of the Social Problem
Ever since women have been allowed to hold a position in any elected office, there have been an increasing amount of women holding elected positions in Canada. The first woman to be appointed to the House of Commons was Agnes MacPhail in 1921, the first woman on the Canadian Senate was Cairine Wilson in 1930, the first female Governor General was Jeanne Suavé in 1984, and the first Canadian female Prime Minister was Kim Cambell in 1993. [22] Although there are still not as many women as men in elected positions even today, it is a huge improvement from before 1929, when it was not clear in the law whether women were allowed to be elected, and consequently, very few women applied to run in elections. The few women that did were usually rejected for simply being women, and very rarely were allowed to run for elected positions. Women started to get into politics in 1916, when Emily Murphy became the British Empire's first woman magistrate, but it wasn't until 1929 that women could run for any elected position in Canada. [23]
Early Actions for Gender Equality
One of the first major movements towards gender equality in representation rights happened in 1916, when the Political Equality League achieved the right for women to run in Manitoba provincial elections. This movement made its way to Saskatchewan, Alberta, BC, and Ontario over the next two years. [24] Around the same time as this was happening, a single woman in Alberta began fighting for her rights as well. This woman was Emily Murphy, the future leader of the group known as the Famous Five. In 1916, after attempting to observe a trial of women accused of prostituting in Alberta, she was asked to leave the court room. She fought for her rights, putting her argument forward to the Attorney General of Alberta. With some reluctance, she was allowed to become a judge at the Edmonton Municipal Court, and she became the first woman police magistrate in Canada. Thanks to her, the Alberta Supreme Court ruled that women could hold a position in any elected office in Alberta in 1917. At this point, she attempted to run for Senate, but she was thwarted by Eardley Jackson, who stated that women were not considered "persons" to the full extent outside of Alberta, and therefore could not run for Senate. [25] Later in 1917, Louise McKinney, one of the future Famous Five, ran in the Alberta General Election and was elected to the Alberta Legislature. This made her the first woman to be elected as a member of any Legislative Assembly in the British Empire, thanks to what Emily Murphy had done earlier. [26] At the same time that this was happening, the movement to allow women to vote in Canada, or the suffragette movement, was spreading. In 1921, as a result of the suffragette movement, women were allowed to be elected to the House of Commons. Agnes Macphail did exactly that in the 1921 federal general election, becoming the first woman to be elected to Canada's House of Commons. [27]
The Person's Case
Although most provinces had already allowed women to run in elections, and women could be elected to the House of Commons, there was no Canada-wide law that said that women were "persons" and could run for any elected position. One of the major positions that women could still not run for was the Senate, which Emily Murphy wanted to do. She had already tried and failed, on the basis that women were not considered "qualified persons" by British Common Law. [28] This was not made very clear however, so she wanted to ask the Supreme Court of Canada to see if they would allow women to run for Senate. To do this, she needed at least five citizens to submit a question. [29] This is why she gathered five of the the most influential women in Alberta to help her: Louise McKinney, Nellie McClung, Henrietta Muir Edwards, and Irene Parlby. They submitted their question in 1927, and the Supreme court responded in 1928. [30] However, it was not the response they were looking for. The Supreme Court stated that women were not considered "qualified persons" and could not run for Senate. The group of five women to be known later as the Famous Five did not give up, and they submitted the same question to the Judicial Committee of England's Privy Council. In 1929, the Privy Council reversed the decision of the Supreme Court, making women "persons" in all of the British Empire, allowing them to run for any elected position including the Canadian Senate. [31] Although Emily Murphy never ended up becoming a Senator, just a year after the Council's decision, Cairine Wilson became Canada's first Senator in 1930. [32]