By MURPHY BROWNE (Abena Agbetu)
October was designated Women’s History Month in 1992 to commemorate the “Persons Case” which was launched by the “Famous Five”.
On October 18, 1929, the historic decision to include women in the legal definition of “persons” was handed down by Canada’s highest court of appeal, the British Privy Council.
This decision did not include all Canadian women: African Canadian women, Asian women and Indigenous women were not included.
The decision gave White women the right to be appointed to the Senate of Canada and paved the way for their increased participation in politics.
Five White Canadian women took the case to the British Privy Council and won the right to become members of the Senate.
On October 18, 1929, Lord Sankey, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, announced the decision: “The exclusion of women from all public offices is a relic of days more barbarous than ours. And to those who would ask why the word ‘person’ should include females, the obvious answer is, why should it not?”
The decision contradicted an earlier ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada.
The “Famous Five” who took the case to the British Privy Council were led by Emily Murphy who was very open about her disdain for racialized people. In her 1922 published book “The Black Candle” she attacks “Chinese, Hindus, Mexicans and Negroes” as people unfit to live in Canada. Some people have sought to excuse her White supremacist diatribe as being a product of her time.
To give Emily Murphy her due she did fight for the rights of White Canadian women.
A quote from a CBC article “Women & The Right To Vote In Canada: An Important Clarification” published on February 26, 2013, reads: “Most women of colour – including Chinese women, “Hindu” or East Indian women, Japanese women – weren’t allowed to vote at the provincial and federal level until the late 1940s. And under federal law, Aboriginal women covered by the Indian Act couldn’t vote for band councils until 1951 and couldn’t vote in federal elections until 1960.
“So, there you go – it wasn’t until 1960 that ALL Canadian women finally had the right to vote.”
Although there has been a documented African presence in Canada (enslaved and free) since the early 1600s, Rosemary Brown was the first African Canadian woman elected to a Canadian provincial legislature. In 1972 Brown was elected to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia and in 1975 she became the first African Canadian woman to run for the leadership of a major federal party (NDP) in Canada.
In 1993, Dr. Jean Augustine was the first African Canadian woman elected to the Canadian Federal Parliament since Confederation in 1867. She served as a Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for four consecutive terms, being re-elected three times.
“In December 1995, Canada’s federal parliament officially recognized February as Black History Month. The motion, which was initiated by MP Jean Augustine, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, received unanimous approval.
Canada has come a long way from the 1920s when it was acceptable to discriminate against women based on their gender and their race. We have come a long way since it was legal to enslave African women, men and children. We have come a long way since Emily Murphy, member of “The Famous Five” wrote: “It sometimes seems as if the white race lacks both the physical and moral stamina to protect itself, and that maybe the black and yellow races may yet obtain the ascendancy.”
She wrote those words as a descendant of colonizers/immigrants from the British Isles, with the accompanying sense of entitlement.
Canada has come a long way since it was legal to drag an African Canadian woman out of a cinema because she sat in the “wrong” area of the cinema. In 2019, the face of African Canadian, Viola Desmond (who was dragged out of a cinema and arrested on November 8, 1946) was placed on the Canadian $10. bill.
As Canadians celebrate/observe Women’s History Month in October 2024, although we have come a long way from 1929, we still have a long way to go. In this last year of the United Nations-declared International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024) there are several African Canadian women who are plaintiffs suing the Federal government in a complaint of anti-Black racism (https://www.blackclassaction.ca/) in a “Black Class Action lawsuit” seeking long-term solutions to permanently address systemic racism and discrimination in the Public Service of Canada.
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