page_title: Feminism in Canada
section_title: Women's right to vote in Canada
hierarchical_section_title: Feminism in Canada / Waves of Canadian feminism / First wave / Women's right to vote in Canada
context_page_description: The history of feminism in Canada has been a gradual struggle aimed at establishing equal rights. The history of Canadian feminism, like modern Western feminism in other countries, has been divided by scholars into four "waves", each describing a period of intense activism and social change. The use of "waves" has been critiqued for its failure to include feminist activism of, for example, Aboriginal and Québécois women who organized for changes in their own communities as well as for larger social change..
context_section_description: Organizing around women's suffrage in Canada peaked in the mid-1910s. Various franchise clubs were formed, and in Ontario, the Toronto Women's Literary Club was established in 1876 as a guise for suffrage activities, though by 1883 it was renamed the Toronto Women's Suffrage Association. Compared to other English speaking industrialized countries, Canada's suffrage movement gained success rather easily, and without violence. The tactics adopted by the movement in order to bring about reform included collecting petitions, staging mock parliaments and selling postcards. 
  Widows and unmarried women were granted the right to vote in municipal elections in Ontario in 1884. Such limited franchises were extended in other provinces at the end of the 19th century, but bills to enfranchise women in provincial elections failed to pass in any province until Manitoba, and Saskatchewan finally succeeded in early 1916. Alberta followed the same year and Emily Murphy became the first woman magistrate not just in Canada, but the entire British Empire. At the federal level it was a two step process. On September 20, 1917, women gained a limited right to vote: According to the Parliament of Canada website, the Military Voters Act established that "women who are British subjects and have close relatives in the armed forces can vote on behalf of their male relatives, in federal elections." About a year and a quarter later, at the beginning of 1919, the right to vote was extended to all women in the Act to confer the Electoral Franchise upon Women. The remaining provinces quickly followed suit, except for Quebec, which did not do so until 1940. Agnes Macphail became the first woman elected to Parliament in 1921.
  Large numbers of women continued for many years to be excluded from the right to vote, based on race or indigeneity. British Columbia, for example, denied persons of Asian, Indian (Southeast Asian), and Indigenous origin the rights to universal adult suffrage that came about with the Dominion Elections Act of 1920.
  First women elected in the British Empire were two Alberta women (Louise McKinney and Roberta MacAdams) elected in 1917.
  First woman elected to the House of Commons was Progressive candidate Agnes MacPhail, elected in 1921.
caption: Helena Gutteridge fought for women's suffrage in BC
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