January 28, 1916 - Manitoba Women - a podcast by Stephen Hammond

Manitoba becomes Canada’s first province to give women the vote. The mostly upper-class women involved in the early days of Canada’s women’s movement viewed universal suffrage (the vote) as a tool to strengthen good, Protestant values in Canada. Their fight, of course, was a lengthy one, and led to a patchwork of results. Involved in the process were women of the Dominion Women’s Enfranchisement Association and the National Council of Women, where between 1890 and 1900 they introduced a number of bills for provincial suffrage that were all defeated in the legislatures of Ontario, Nova Scotia, Manitoba and Quebec. The campaigns, political alliances and tactics continued into the new century, but that didn’t change much for almost another generation. Of course the vote did come to women and it started in Manitoba. After years of battles with Manitoba politicians, suffragettes like Nellie McClung – a long-time Manitoban and member of the Women’s Christian Temperance – could celebrate. On January 28, 1916, the government of Manitoba amended the Election Act, finally granting women the right to vote. Manitoba was the first province to give women the vote. It would be decades before all women throughout Canada joined them at the voting booth. Women in Saskatchewan and Alberta got the vote in 1916; followed by women in B.C. and Ontario in 1917, Nova Scotia in 1918, New Brunswick and the Yukon in 1919, P.E.I. in 1922, Newfoundland in 1925, Quebec in 1940 and finally women in the North West Territories in 1951. All aboriginals, including women, only got the right to the vote federally in 1960.

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