1. MAY 1, 2017 Notes – Women in the 1920s and the “Person’s Case’
“The Infamous Five” – Ethical Judgement Assignment
“Missing the Roar” – Questions
Learning Outcome: Describe and explain the significance of the “Person’s Case” to the evolution of Women’s Rights in Canada.

2. Review
Why were the 1920s known as the “Roaring Twenties”

3. Women Between the Wars Main role still as wives and mothers.
Most women in business/industry worked as secretaries, telephone operators or sales clerks.
Usually earned much less than men.

4. Women in Politics
Women had won the right to vote in 1918, but only four women ran for office in the 1921 election.
Agnes Macphail – First woman to be elected into House of Commons ( )

5. Women in Politics
Federal and provincial governments remained male dominated.
Western provinces elected nine women into legislature
BC’s first MLA – Helen Gregory MacGill
Some social reforms took place
Female politicians fought for rights of women and children.
By end of 1920s, Equal Rights measure passed in BC Legislature
Reversed most of the laws restricting political and legal rights of women.

6. The Person’s Case
1916 – Emily Murphy (well known suffragist) appointed magistrate in Alberta.
Appointment challenged:
BNA Act (1867) - only “persons” could hold seats in a legislature or be a judge in a court of law.
According to law, women were not considered at this time to be “persons” in eyes of law.

7. The Person’s Case
Murphy challenged Prime Minister Mackenzie King to appoint a woman senator and clarify the definition of “person.”
Murphy discovered a Canadian document that said that “any five citizens, acting as a unit, had the right to petition the Supreme Court for clarification of a constitutional point.”
She enlisted the help of four other women and, together, they became known as “The Famous Five”.

8. The Persons Case: The Famous Five
Henrietta Muir Edwards
Activist for suffrage and political rights for women
She was 80 years old when Murphy contacted her

9. The Persons Case The Famous Five
Louise McKinney
First woman elected to any government in Canada
Elected MLA in Alberta, elected in 1917

10. The Persons Case The Famous Five
Irene Parlby
Advocate for rural women and children
Elected to the Alberta Legislature in 1921.
First female Cabinet Minister in Alberta’s history and only the second in the entire British Empire.

11. The Persons Case The Famous Five
Nellie McClung
-teacher, temperance leader, suffragist, politician, historian, wife, mother, and activist. She was also a famous writer, journalist and public speaker.

12. The Persons Case The Famous Five
On March 14, 1928, the Famous Five took their question to the Supreme Court of Canada:
“Does the word ‘person’ in Section 24 of the British North America Act of 1867 include female persons?”

13. The Persons Case
Murphy argued that women were “qualified persons” and must be entitled to hold appointed public office.
The Supreme Court decided that women were not “persons” under the Canadian Constitution.
When the BNA Act was written, women could not participate in politics and were not “qualified persons.”
Only male nouns and pronouns were used in the BNA Act

14. The Persons Case – The Appeal
The Five women appeal the decision to the Judicial Committee of Privy Council in Britain.
On October 18, 1929, the five Lords of the Judicial Committee declared its support for the women
They "unanimously came to the conclusion that the word ‘persons’ in Section 24 includes members both of the male and female sex.“
Women considered persons under the law.
Could become members of the Senate.

15. Person’s Case – The Appeal
“[the exclusion] of women from all public offices is a relic of days more barbarous than ours…To those who would ask why the word “person” should include females. The obvious answer is, why should it not?” – Privy Council Judgement, October

16. Henrietta Muir Edwards
“ Personally, I do not care whether or not women ever sit in the Senate, but we fought for the privilege for the to do so. We sought to establish the personal individuality of women and this decision is the announcement of our victory. It has been an uphill fight.”

17. The ‘Persons’ Case The Impact of the Case
Although the Famous Five themselves were never appointed senators, their victory in the "Persons" Case led to increased opportunities for women and their greater participation in government and in other areas of Canadian society.
Four months after the judgement of the Judicial Committee of England's Privy Council, Cairine Wilson became the first female admitted to the Canadian Senate.

21. What impression of these women do you get from this video?

22. The legislation in Alberta established a Eugenics Board with the power to authorize the sexual sterilization of certain individuals, including those who were "psychotic" or "mentally defective," in order to eliminate "the risk of multiplication of the evil by transmission of the disability to progeny" or the risk of "mental injury either to the individual or to his or her progeny."

23. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFD3san49W8 –