The Famous Five (Canada)

The Famous Five (French: Célèbres cinq), also known as The Valiant Five,[1] and initially as The Alberta Five, were five prominent Canadian suffragists who advocated for women and children: Henrietta Muir Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney, Emily Murphy, and Irene Parlby.

The question the federal government posed to the Supreme Court was: "Does the word 'Persons' in Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?"

On October 18, 1929, the Judicial Committee overruled the Supreme Court and held that women were "qualified persons" and eligible to be appointed to the Senate.

The women of the Famous Five included Emily Murphy, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney, and Irene Parlby.

She was also a Red Cross leader during World War I. Edwards was the secretary of the National Subcommittee which focused on thrift and economy in Canadian homes.

She was a member of the Political Equality League of Manitoba, and she played the leading role in the Mock Parliament held on January 29, 1914, at the Walker Theatre in Winnipeg, which humorously discussed Votes for Men .

She was a founder of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in Alberta and the West – she was the organization's vice-president for more than 22 years beginning in 1906 – and regularly attended World Meetings of the WCTU.

[10] During the year 1917 a discussion began surrounding women and their position in the senate, for 10 years this debate continued, however, was disregarded in 1927 as the Canadian BNA act implied it was impossible [11] In August 1927, Emily Murphy invited four women activists, Nellie McClung, Irene Parlby, Louise McKinney and Henrietta Muir Edwards, to her home in Edmonton to discuss plans to petition the Canadian government to submit a reference question to the Supreme Court of Canada regarding the interpretation of the word persons in the British North America Act.

[11] In response to the petition, the Canadian government referred the following question to the Supreme Court: "Does the word 'Persons' in section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?

The ruling was based on the premise that the term should be interpreted in the same way as in 1867, and that the act would have specifically mentioned women if they had meant to make an exception for the Senate.

[14] The judgment was delivered by the Lord Chancellor, Viscount Sankey, who stated: [The] exclusion of women from all public offices is a relic of days more barbarous than ours ... their Lordships do not think it right to apply rigidly to Canada of to-day the decisions and the reasonings therefor which commended themselves ... to those who had to apply the law in different circumstances, in different centuries, to countries in different stages of development.As a result of the Famous 5's determination and advocacy, the decision to overturn the supreme court and give women the title of “persons” was enacted.

Some individuals believed they were powerful women but others took no interest in their fights or even actively opposed some of their ideas, such as opposition to non-white immigration and their successful campaigns to have eugenics legislation introduced in Canadian provinces, which resulted in the sterilization of thousands of those deemed "mentally deficient" or "insane" in Alberta and elsewhere.

[18] Nellie McClung favoured free medical and dental treatment for school children as well as mothers' allowances and better property rights for women.

She supported reasonable measures for social welfare and health as well as introducing bills intended to make prohibition more effective, to improve the lot of immigrants and bring better security to widows.

[6][page needed] The Famous Five have been commemorated with individual and group plaques in the foyer and antechamber of Canada's Senate, and two identical sculptures by Canadian artist Barbara Paterson, one on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, the other at the Olympic Plaza in Calgary.

The sculpture on Parliament Hill was unveiled on October 18, 2000, in a public ceremony that included songs in French and English, Inuit dancers, and speeches by Governor General Adrienne Clarkson and Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.

Emily Murphy also received many honours for her life's work including being decorated by King George V to be a Lady of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

[citation needed] Irene Parlby was honoured in 1935 at spring convocation at the University of Alberta with an honorary doctor of laws degree.

To honour the Five and continue to involve women in leadership roles in Canada, Frances Wright and others established the non-profit Famous Five Foundation on October 18, 1996, the 70th anniversary of the decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.