The Woman Suffrage Movement In Canada

The history of woman suffrage in Canada has been largely ignored in the standard accounts of our past and has attracted little attention–at least until recently–from research students. The major exception is Catherine Cleverdon's study. Written nearly a quarter of a century ago, it remains the authoritative, indeed the only complete account of the suffragist struggle which took place here. Women won the franchise through the efforts of small groups across the country who devoted their energies to the cause over a considerable number of years. The author tells the spirited story of their encounters with the recalcitrant legislatures of the dominion and the provinces, of their frustrations and disappointments at the indifference with which their struggles often were met, and of the final culmination of their efforts in victory–in Quebec, only in 1940. With this work Catherine Cleverdon charted a pioneer course through an almost completely unexplored field, marshalling skilfully a massive bulk of source material to great effect, adding lively details and engaging anecdotes to make the account both informative and vivid. She deals with the struggle for the suffrage in each province and on the federal level. Women received the suffrage first in the prairie provinces where there existed a feeling that they as much as men had opened up the land and that therefore, the vote, if they wanted it, was their due. Only in Quebec, the book records, did the struggle, bitterly contested, come closest to developing into a real fight following the British and US pattern. This volume contains indispensable background materials for the story of women's social and political growth. Its republication is testimony to the new climate of interest in the study of the history of women in Canada.

On the eve of celebrating the 100th anniversary of women's right to vote in Canada comes a timely reassessment of everything Canadians thought they knew about the history of women, the vote, and democracy in our nation

Many of Canada’s most famous suffragists lived and campaigned in the Prairie provinces, which led the way in granting women the right to vote and hold office. In Ours by Every Law of Right and Justice, Sarah Carter challenges the myth that grateful male legislators simply handed women the vote when it was asked for. Settler suffragists worked long and hard to overcome obstacles and persuade doubters. But even as they petitioned for the vote for their sisters, they often approved of that same right being denied to “foreigners” and Indigenous peoples. By situating the suffragists’ struggle in the colonial history of Prairie Canada, this powerful and passionate book shows that the right to vote meant different things to different people.

In 1844, seven widows dared to cast ballots in an election in Canada West, a display of feminist effrontery that was quickly punished: the government struck a law excluding women from the vote. It would be seven decades before women regained voting rights in Ontario. Our Voices Must Be Heard explores Ontario’s suffrage history, examining its ideals and failings, its daring supporters and thunderous enemies, and its blind spots on matters of race and class. It looks at how and why suffragists from around the province joined an international movement they called “the great cause.” This is the second volume in the seven-part Women’s Suffrage and the Struggle for Democracy series.

The achievement of the vote in 1918 is often celebrated as a triumphant moment in the onward, upward advancement of Canadian women. Acclaimed historian Joan Sangster looks beyond the shiny rhetoric of anniversary celebrations and Heritage Minutes to show that the struggle for equality included gains and losses, inclusions and exclusions, depending on a woman’s race, class, and location within the nation. She travels back in time to tell a new, more inclusive story for a new generation and exposes not only the fissures of inequality that cut deep into our country’s past but also their weaknesses in the face of resistance, optimism, and protest – an inspiring legacy that resonates to this day.

The achievement of the vote in 1918 is often celebrated as a triumphant moment in the onward, upward advancement of Canadian women. Acclaimed historian Joan Sangster looks beyond the shiny rhetoric of anniversary celebrations and Heritage Minutes to show that the struggle for equality included gains and losses, inclusions and exclusions, depending on a woman’s race, class, and location within the nation. She travels back in time to tell a new, more inclusive story for a new generation and exposes not only the fissures of inequality that cut deep into our country’s past but also their weaknesses in the face of resistance, optimism, and protest – an inspiring legacy that resonates to this day.

Although her name today is synonymous with the women’s suffrage movement in Canada, Nellie McClung’s long and varied career covered several fields—from social activist to elected politician, from novelist to journalist. McClung was instrumental in Canadian women gaining the right to vote before their British and American counterparts—2016 marks the one-hundred-year anniversary of women’s suffrage in Manitoba, Alberta, and Saskatchewan—and in women being recognized as persons eligible to sit in the Senate. McClung was a household name by the time she was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in 1921, a post she held for five years. When she settled on Vancouver Island in 1932, McClung was a highly esteemed public figure who had not only changed Canada’s political landscape and influenced women’s rights worldwide but had also raised five children and written a dozen best-selling books. From her beloved Island home, Lantern Lane, McClung continued to speak out against social injustice and inequality. In the late 1930s, she began to write a syndicated weekly newspaper column that served as social commentary for the years leading up to World War II. The Valiant Nellie McClung highlights a selection of those columns—covering themes as grave as war, as fundamental as the strength of the family unit, and as whimsical as the pleasure of gardening—and offers a unique reflection of our country’s history and an uncanny resonance today.