Women's suffrage in Canada
Talking it over with her friend, Helen Archibald, they decided that it would not be politic to attempt at once a suffrage association—but instead, in November 1877, organized the Toronto Woman's Literary Club (TWLC).
[9][10]During the next five years, this club had phenomenal growth, adding to its ranks such woman as Mary McDonell (WCTU), Mrs. W. B. Hamilton, Mrs. W. I. Mackenzie, Mrs. J. Austin Shaw, and others.
One of the earliest efforts in this direction was a paper, by Archibald, entitled "Woman Under the Civil Law", which elicited discussion and served as educational material.
On September 10, 1883, a committee was appointed to urge the City Council to petition the Local Government to pass a bill conferring the municipal franchise upon women.
Accordingly, objections were set aside, and every woman worked towards securing this partial reform, even though, if married, she would not directly benefit by it.
[10] Another important work accomplished about this time, more or less directly through the influence of the Suffrage Association, was the opening of the Woman's Medical College in Toronto.
Stowe (with her friend, Jennie Kidd Trout) had, in the 1870s, forced her way into a season's lectures on chemistry in the Toronto School of Medicine.
[10] After the labour involved in securing the municipal suffrage in 1883, and later, in struggling for the opening of the Woman's Medical College, there was a lull until 1889, when Stowe made arrangements to bring Dr. Anna Howard Shaw to Toronto to lecture.
The lecture was a success, creating so much interest in the matter that the old suffrage association, which had been practically non-existent for several seasons, was re-organized, with Stowe as president, and Sarah Anne Curzon as secretary.
She succeeded in increasing interest in suffrage work, until it spread from the women of Toronto to those of surrounding towns, with new groups organizing in many places.
Mrs. McDonell, ever indefatigable in her zeal for women, accompanied Howell to many towns throughout Ontario, to stimulate suffrage clubs already in existence and to form others.
Anna Shaw, Isabella Hooker (sister of Henry Ward Beecher), and McLellan Brown, lawyer and president of a Cincinnati college.
[10] Yellow, the colour of gold, and the symbol of wisdom in the East, was the badge of equal suffragists all over the continent, and was used for decorations at all meetings of the hall.
Some of the mottoes used were "Canada's Daughters Should be Free", "No Sex in Citizenship", "Women are half the People", and "Woman, Man's Equal".
[10] In 1890, in accordance with the desire of the Equal-Suffragists, Mayor Edward Frederick Clarke and the Toronto City Council determined to invite the Association for the Advancement of Women (A.A.W.
Some of the women who attended and contributed were: Julia Ward Howe, author and litterateur, the friend and associate of Emerson, Longfellow, and Holmes; Mary F. Eastman, one of the leading New England educationists; Alice Stone Blackwell, editor of the Woman's Journal, and daughter of the Rev.
Slavery in Canada meant that Black persons were legally deemed chattel property and not considered "people", and therefore did not possess the rights and freedoms granted to citizens, such as democratic participation.
As British subjects, they were entitled to civil rights, but this was extended only to property-owning men, as a gender barrier still existed for all women.
The controversial Wartime Elections Act that passed on September 20, 1917, granted the federal vote to women associated with the armed forces.
On May 24, 1918, the Women's Franchise Act was enacted, that granted female citizens over the age of 21 the federal vote, regardless if their province had approved enfranchisement.
[13] In the 19th and 20th century, Asian peoples began immigrating to Canada and were denied the right to vote in both provincial and federal elections.
In 1920, the Dominion Elections Act was passed by Parliament and it stated that provinces could not discriminate against people based on differences in ethnicity, but this still excluded Canadians of Asian heritage, meaning they were still denied the right to vote.
Once Indigenous peoples became enfranchised, and removed from coverage of the Indian Act, they were granted rights identical to that of other Canadian citizens.
