The drive to secure women's suffrage was a long one. The first organization with that goal in mind was established as early as the 1890s, and it took until 1940 for the last province, Quebec, to grant suffrage to women with the same restrictions as men.
In Manitoba, the movement had started in the 1870s, and properly in 1890s with the founding of the first suffrage organization, one based on Icelandic woman who had had the vote in the old country. Icelandic women’s suffrage societies would spread across much of the province and became a potent force in the suffrage movement.
The Women's Christian Temperance Movement was also an important bulwark of the suffrage movement as well as pursuing prohibition of alcohol. The two causes went hand in hand. (Grain Growers Guide, May 18, 1910)
In Manitoba women were able to vote in municipal elections starting in 1887 and for school board trustees starting in 1890. Likely they had to be property-owners. (Canadian Encyclopedia: "Women's Suffrage in Manitoba")
In Edmonton a few women (probably owners of property) voted in the first town election (as recorded in the Feb. 13, 1892 Edmonton Bulletin), but women first widely granted right to vote in 1912.
Manitoba women were first to win right to vote in provincial elections.
Saskatchewan and Alberta women also won right to vote the same year, in 1916.
The first provincial election held after Manitoba women's suffrage was won was not until 1920, so Manitoba, instead of being the first, was the fourth province to hold a provincial election where women could vote.
These are dates when women were given voting rights on same basis as men.
Some categories were denied the federal vote even after women's suffrage for federal elections was secured in 1919.
Asian women and men did not win suffrage until 1948;
Inuit women and men did not until 1950;
First Nations women and men could not vote before 1960 without requiring them to give up their treaty status.
In Alberta provincial elections, "Treaty Indians" could not vote until 1967.
And of course women and men under the age of 21 could not vote until fairly recently. In Alberta the voting age was dropped to 18 in 1971.
----------------
Timeline of first general provincial elections where women could vote -- and run for office as well (unless otherwise stated)
Alberta
June 7, 1917 general election -- two women elected: Louise McKinney and Roberta MacAdams. They were first women elected as legislators in British Empire.
Saskatchewan
June 26, 1917 general election -- not known if women ran as candidates.
(first woman elected, Sarah Ramsland, was in July 29, 1919 by-election)
Ontario
(first woman to run for provincial seat in Ontario did so before she could vote. Margaret Haile of the Canadian Socialist League ran in 1902 provincial election. (A prominent thinker of the CSL, author Charles Sheldon, was famous for his perennial question "What would Jesus do?".)
The next to run was in 1919 after suffrage was won.
Women's suffrage won on April 12, 1917.
1919 general election -- three women ran as candidates: Justenia Sears (Ottawa West), Henrietta Bundy (Toronto Northeast B) and Elizabeth Allen (Fort William).
None were elected.
The number of votes cast tripled in this election in some districts, such as Toronto Northeast, due to women being able to vote. (Frederick Brent Scollie, "The woman candidate for the Ontario Assembly 1919-1929" (available online))
(The election of the first women MLAs was not until 1943 - former MP Agnes MacPhail and Margaret Rae Luckock.)
Manitoba
women's suffrage won in 1916
June 29, 1920 general election -- Edith Rogers elected.
Nova Scotia
Pre-1891 women could vote if owners of property.
Then until 1918 they could not vote.
1918 to 1920 they could vote if owners of property.
Finally in 1920 NS women achieved wide suffrage.
July 27, 1920 general election -- not known if women ran as candidates
(The first woman elected in NS was not until Gladys Porter in 1960.)
New Brunswick
1919 women won right to vote but not the right to run for provincial seat.
Oct. 9, 1920 general election -- women voted but did not run as candidates.
1934 women won right to run provincially.
First woman to run was Frances Fish in 1935.
First woman elected was Brenda Roberson in 1967.) ("New Brunswick Election History" website)
BC
women's suffrage won in 1917
(first woman elected, Mary Ellen Smith, in 1918 by-election)
Oct. 23, 1920 general election -- Mary Ellen Smith was re-elected.
PEI
women won right to vote 1922.
After this, first general election was in 1923 -- not known if women ran as candidates.
(First woman elected was not until Jean Canfield in 1970.)
Newfoundland
women won right to vote (if at least 25 years of age) in 1925.
After that, first general election was 29 October 1928. Not known if women ran for office. But is recorded that 52,343 Newfoundland women cast votes, which was 90 percent voter turnout for their gender.
(First woman elected was Helena Squires in 1930 by-election)
(1934-1945 no elected government, due colonial take-over of the bankrupt colony)
Joined Confederation in 1949. Women and men over 20 yoa allowed to vote.
(First woman elected after Confederation was Hazel McIsaac in 1975.)
Quebec
women won right to vote 1940.
1944 general election - no women ran for office.
Mae O'Connor was first woman candidate, in 1947 by-election.
(first woman elected was not until Marie-Claire Kirkland-Casgrain in 1961 by-election.) (Wikipedia: "Timeline of Quebec History")
---------------------------
Once the basic right to vote and to run for office is secured, it is important to see that the vote means something. The delay seen in many provinces of seeing elected women elected only long after women, half the population, won the the vote shows the lack of power of the vote under the existing First Past The Post system. Alberta and Manitoba turned to STV to address the issue but have now moved back to FPTP.
And now every provincial election and federal election uses FPTP.
And now in any FPTP election you can see:
-- 35 to 66 percent of the vote in each district ignored;
-- parties with 4 percent of the vote or more totally without representation;
-- any but the leading party being under-represented;
-- leading party with low majority of the votes (or sometimes even only a minority of the votes) taking a majority of the seats;
-- false feelings of regionalism created by the leading party in a region taking far more seats in the region than is due, while a different party leading elsewhere does the same to it in that place in return,
-- and under FPTP success often eludes women candidates. Under STV. Rogers could be elected as just one of ten representatives in a district but under FPTP most votes usually do go to a man. The Edmonton city council is elected through FPTP - and there are only two women on the 12-seat council, probably not a coincidence.
Attention must turn to the right to have EFFECTIVE VOTING, where a high proportion of voters see one of their choices elected.
EFFECTIVE VOTING is proportional representation.
Under PR a high proportion of votes are not wasted as they are under First past the post. Instead they are used to help elect someone, whether someone of their kind such as a woman being elected by women voters, or to help elect someone else whom they choose to elect, such as along party lines -- Conservative, Liberal, labourite, socialist, environmentalist, etc. of whatever gender.
Achieving proportional representation is the next task -- municipally, provincially and federally.
=================================================
Comments