One hundred years ago, some women in Canada won the right to vote, after a long struggle.
Suffragists had been campaigning for the vote, in Canada as well as in Britain and the US,
for decades.
The Dominion Election Act of 1900 explicitly denied the right to vote to women, Aboriginal
people and racialized citizens.
During World War I, some women were given the right to vote.
First, the Military Voters Act of 1917 gave nurses and women in the armed forces the right
to vote.
Next, women who had husbands, sons or fathers serving overseas were given the vote, and
on May 24th, 1918, all female citizens aged 21 and over became eligible to vote in federal
elections--unless they were Aboriginal or racialized.
Some provinces had accepted women's right to vote in provincial elections before the
federal government.
In 1916, Manitoba became the first province to grant women the right to vote.
Saskatchewan and Alberta weren't far behind and British Columbia and Ontario followed
suit in 1917.
By 1925, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and P.E.I.
had approved women's provincial voting rights but Quebec waited until 1940.
It wasn't until 1948 that restrictions on the right to vote on the basis of race were
abolished, and in 1955 restrictions on the basis of religion were ended.
In 1960, Aboriginal men and women could vote without abandoning their status and rights
as Aboriginal persons.
The "famous five" won a landmark decision in 1929, when the British Privy Council ruled
that women were indeed persons and could become Senators.
This overturned a Canadian Supreme Court ruling from a year earlier.
With momentum building, women turned their activism towards new goals, including electing
women to federal and provincial legislatures, and changing the laws of the land to achieve
equality between men and women.
In the 1960s, the second wave of the women's liberation movement was born and women's demands
for formal and substantive equality made enormous progress.
In 1970 the women's movement convinced the federal government to create The Royal Commission
on the Status of Women, which made 167 recommendations for greater equality for women--some of them
have been implemented
In 1972, Rosemary Brown became the first Black woman to sit in the Legislative Assembly of
British Columbia.
She also ran for leadership of the federal NDP in 1975.
In 1982, again as a result of political activism by organized women, equality between men and
women was entrenched in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
In the same year, Bertha Wilson became the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court
of Canada.
Throughout Canadian society, institutions began to address women's equality issues,
In 1984, The Ontario Federation of Labour was the first trade union in Canada to designate
affirmative action seats for women on its Executive.
The same year, The Report of the Royal Commission on Equality in Employment called for action
to remove discriminatory barriers against women, racialized people, aboriginal peoples
and persons with disabilities.
In 1985, Bill C-31 changed the Indian Act, restoring status to Aboriginal women who had
married non-status men--but only some of their descendants would see their status restored.
A huge victory occurred in 1988, when the Supreme Court struck down Canada's abortion
law as unconstitutional.
In 1989, Audrey McLaughlin became the first woman to head a major federal political party,
the NDP.
In 1991, British Columbia's Rita Johnston became Canada's first female premier.
In 2000, Beverly McLachlin became Canada's first female Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court.
Today, Canada has the world's most gender-balanced Supreme Court, with 4 of its 9 members being
female.
Women's groups have pressured the federal government into launching a national public
inquiry into the more than 1,000 missed and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada.
Memorial marches to raise public awareness are now held every February 14th, and this
year, Jody Wilson Raybould became the first Aboriginal justice minister in Canadian history.
Here's a look at where women stand today in Canadian federal politics:
The House of Commons includes 88 female MPs,.or 26 percent representation.
That's up only 1 percent from the 2011 election.
The real success story is in the cabinet, where for the first time, we have a 50/50
gender split.
Winning the vote for Canadian women was a huge step forward, but even 100 years later,
there's a long and challenging path ahead.