Shortly after the end of the First World War, when an Alberta magistrate named Emily Murphy was nominated to the Senate of Canada, her appointment was turned down. Senators had to be “persons” having certain qualities and, according to the Canadian Constitution, as a woman she was not legally a person. Murphy challenged the decision but the Supreme Court upheld it: our Constitution, the British North America Act, was quite clear on the matter.
Equally clear to Emily Murphy and the four women who joined her fight was the need to revise that BNA Act. The trouble was you could not do that in Canada: the BNA Act was an act of the British Parliament. And so in the end they had to take it to London where, after a decade of determined lobbying, Murphy and her colleagues won the “persons issue” and the act was revised.
It is unlikely that a street poll today would turn up more than a tiny percentage of Canadian citizens who know that...
Patrick Watson began his broadcasting career in 1943. As creative director of the Historica Foundation, he developed The Heritage Minutes. He has published 14 books, including four novels. His newest book is a series of sketches of history and historical figures, in comic verse, entitled Finn’s Thin Book of Irish Ironies, illustrated by Aislin and published on St. Patrick’s Day 2010 by McArthur and Company.
Advertisement
Advertisement