 Alberta's women, especially those of the UFA-affiliated United Farm Women of Alberta, were active in the province's moral reform movement. They were also active in seeking the vote: in 1913 a delegation of them arrived at the legislature demanding the vote; Sifton asked them "did you ladies wash up your luncheon dishes before you came down here to ask me for the vote? If you haven 't you'd better go home because you 're not going to get any votes from me." In October 1914 another delegation arrived, bearing the signatures of 40,000 people. At that time, the Premier agreed that most traditional objections to extension of the franchise were "played out", but expressed concern at the increases that would result to the cost of elections and uncertainty at whether most of the province's women actually wanted suffrage. In February 1915 a larger delegation arrived at the legislature and occupied the MLAs'seats, demanding that the franchise be extended quickly enough to allow women to vote in the upcoming prohibition referendum; an angry Sifton refused and suggested to the women that if they wanted the vote, they should contact their MLAs and promise that they would use their votes to re-elect them, "which is after all one of the strongest way in which you can appeal to male human nature, as represented in the legislature." Even so, he committed to raising the issue in the legislature after the referendum. On September 17, 1915, he told UFA President James Speakman that he had given instructions for the preparation of a statute "placing men and women in Alberta on the basis of absolute equality so far as Provincial matters are concerned." True to his word, he introduced legislation in the spring of 1916 giving women the vote in all provincial and municipal elections. The Conservatives supported it enthusiastically, and only St. Albert MLA Lucien Boudreau voted against it (though Ribstone Liberal James Gray Turgeon admitted that he was supporting his leader's legislation against his own convictions).
