Women Winning the Vote in Canada

Women in Canada did not always have the same electoral rights as men. They won the vote through their tireless insistence upon it, expressed through intense and imaginative campaigns. Their efforts were finally rewarded. In 1916, Manitoba was the first province to pass legislation allowing women to vote in provincial elections. This breakthrough paved the way towards new suffrage laws throughout the country, where similar lobbying was going on. Within nine years of Manitoba's suffrage legislation, the federal and most other provincial governments passed laws granting women the vote (1916-25), with Quebec following suit in 1940. Since the adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, universal electoral rights are protected in Canada through constitutional law.

Executive of the Political Equality League of Manitoba after they witnessed the passage of the Suffrage Bill, January 1916
© Provincial Archives of Manitoba/N12944, January 1916