Transcript
Friday, October 11, 2024
16 minutes (audio)
[00:00:00]
Erin: Welcome to the ON Parliament Podcast, where we help spread the word on Parliament. For today’s episode, we wanted to do something special in recognition of Women’s History Month.
[00:00:18]
David: We thought we would delve into the stories of a few women who were trailblazers in Ontario, from the first woman to run for office, to the first elected female MPPs. These indomitable women paved the way for countless others.
[00:00:31]
Erin: That’s right David. Without them, we might not have as many women as we do in our Parliament today, a number that’s close to 40% of the current 124 Members of Provincial Parliament. But you know, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to still include a quick game to take a look at some of the other momentous moments for women in politics in Ontario.
[00:00:52]
David: You know Erin, I think your game might be perfectly suited for our episode today.
[00:00:57]
Erin: Thanks David! I thought so too. For today’s game, I thought that general trivia would be the best way to go. So, I’m going to ask you a question, and you give me your best guess at an answer. Ready?
[00:01:10]
David: Let’s go! I’m ready.
[00:01:13]
Erin: Alright. First question. Ontario and British Columbia granted women the right to vote in provincial elections in 1917. How many other provinces had already granted women the right to vote prior to this?
[00:01:28]
David: Well, I know that in the Prairies, the provinces granted women the right to vote in 1916, so I’m going to say that the answer is 3: Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.
[00:01:38]
Erin: You are correct as always David! Next question. The year 1919 is momentous for women’s rights in both Ontario and Canada. What happened in that year to make it so important?
[00:01:52]
David: I believe, that women were granted the right to run for office at both Ontario’s Provincial Parliament and the House of Commons in Ottawa.
[00:01:59]
Erin: Right again David!
[00:02:00]
David: And you know what? I even have a fun fact to go along with that piece of trivia.
[00:02:05]
Erin: Getting into the fun facts early today! I love it! By all means David, do share.
[00:02:11]
David: Fun fact: After women were able to run for office in Ontario in 1919, there were 2 women on the ballot that year: Henrietta Thompson Bundy and Justerna Sears. Although neither won their seat, it was still a remarkable step forward.
[00:02:27]
Erin: Too true David. I have one last question for you. Why is Women’s History Month celebrated in October in Canada, compared to other countries where it is celebrated in March?
[00:02:41]
David: I believe I know the answer to this one too, Erin. I think it’s because in Canada, The Persons Case was decided on October 18, 1929.
[00:02:49]
Erin: Correct again! But as a bonus question, what was The Persons Case?
[00:02:55]
David: It was a famous Canadian constitutional law case that eventually ruled that the term “persons” in all legal documents and in particular, in the British North America Act [the legislation that created the Dominion of Canada in 1867], should include not only men but women as well. It was a decisive moment in Canadian legal history that meant that women were eligible to sit in the Senate of Canada, amongst many other things that they had been previously legally unable to do.
[00:03:23]
Erin: Excellent synopsis David. And a great way to give some context for our episode today.
[00:03:28]
David: Well, the historical context is all down to your clever game, as always Erin.
[00:03:34]
Erin: Thanks David. I thought the one today would be particularly helpful in setting the stage for why the women that we’re going to discuss today were especially important.
[00:03:43]
David: I couldn’t agree more
[00:03:45]
Erin: Let’s begin our episode by talking about one woman whose name isn’t very well-known, but who was in fact the first woman to run for office in Ontario – a full 17 years before women were officially granted that right: Margaret Haile.
[00:04:04]
David: Not much is known about Margaret Haile’s life before the 1890s, when she became the first woman to write for an English-language socialist publication in Rhode Island, USA. In the piece, she argued for a woman’s right to be able to discuss issues in a public forum like a parliament, just the same as men.
[00:04:20]
Erin: After working her way up in several political parties in the United States, Margaret Haile returned home to Canada in 1902 and joined the Ontario Socialist League, a political party that no longer exists but whose values included the fight for women’s suffrage and the support of unions.
[00:04:38]
David: Margaret Haile was nominated by her party as the candidate for the riding of North Toronto in the 1902 election.
[00:04:43]
Erin: While some questioned the legality of her ability to run, because she was a woman, her name was nonetheless printed on the ballot.
[00:04:51]
David: The nomination process at the time was a bit different than today. All candidates running in a particular riding had to show up to the same meeting to be nominated together. In Margaret Haile’s case, the other candidates had their names added but then immediately left without getting into any debates or speeches.
[00:05:08]
Erin: Not so for Margaret Haile. She got up and began to make a speech about her platform while the crowd immediately began to disperse. Other party members rose to support her by calling out the people who were leaving but to no avail. In the end, she made her speech to a small group of friends and supporters.
[00:05:26]
David: On the day of the election, May 29, 1902, the riding of North Toronto became the place to watch. William Nesbitt beat out the incumbent George Marter by a margin of less than 300 votes. Although Haile finished in third place, she didn’t finish last. One other male candidate in the riding only received 23 votes that day.
[00:05:45]
Erin: Fun fact: Margaret Haile received 81 votes of the 7,498 valid ballots that were cast in the riding that fateful election day.
[00:05:56]
David: Even though she didn’t win, Margaret Haile set the precedent for women to appear on the ballot as a candidate vying for a spot in Ontario’s Parliament.
[00:06:02]
Erin: You know David, the part I find the most interesting is that even if she had won, it’s unlikely that they would have even let Margaret Haile into the Legislature to take her seat because of the laws at the time. You have to remember; Haile pre-dated The Persons Case by close to 30 years.
[00:06:23]
David: Despite that, things were beginning to change at Queen’s Park when it came to women’s right to vote and their representation in the Legislature. As early as 1905, there was legislation introduced in Ontario’s Parliament that would have extended the right to vote to women. Although it didn’t pass at the time, it was reintroduced again in 1917 and finally got the approval of the House.
[00:06:42]
Erin: Even though she wasn’t elected, Margaret Haile deserves a spot on our list of trailblazers in honour of Women’s History Month for her bravery to put her name forward before she was legally allowed to work in Queen’s Park, and for setting the stage for countless others to follow in her footsteps. Like the next two women that we’re going to discuss.
[00:07:02]
David: Despite the fact that women were allowed to run for office in Ontario beginning in 1919, it would take until 1943 before a woman would earn a seat in the provincial Legislature. But that’s not to say that there weren’t women trying to get elected in the interim. In fact, 4 women ran in 1923, another 2 in 1926. Four more tried in the 1929 election and a whopping 6 ran in the 1934 election – all to no avail.
[00:07:30]
Erin: Finally, in 1943, Ontario saw the first female Member of Provincial Parliament cross its floors. But even more amazingly, it wasn’t one woman who was elected at the time, but two: Rae Luckock and Agnes Macphail.
[00:07:47]
David: Margarette Rae Morrison was born on October 15, 1893. She was raised on the family farm in Arthur, Ontario. She never attended high school but was very familiar with politics as her father, James J. Morrison, was one of the founders of The United Farmers of Ontario, the political party that served as Ontario’s government from 1919 to 1923.
[00:08:09]
Erin: In 1914, she married Richard Luckock, a tool-and-die maker, and the couple settled in the west end of Toronto. Rae Luckock, as she was now called, worked as a seamstress during the Great Depression but had to go on social relief when she lost her job.
[00:08:25]
David: Tragedy struck when her daughter, Fern, died at the age of 12 from complications due to scarlet fever. After her daughter’s death, she became determined to represent the underprivileged and disadvantaged in any way she could.
[00:08:37]
Erin: Rae Luckock joined the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation at its inception in 1932 and served as a local party activist. Today, many people would recognize it as the New Democratic Party. She also ran for the Toronto school board as a trustee. Fun fact: she ran five times before winning on her sixth try in January 1943.
[00:09:01]
David: Later that same year, Rae Luckock was the CCF candidate in the provincial riding of Bracondale in Toronto. She won her seat by a margin of just over 200 votes.
[00:09:11]
Erin: While in the Legislature, she served as her party’s Education Critic, and promoted the idea of free university tuition and improved rural education. She also campaigned for the equality of women by advocating equal pay for equal work and pay for homemakers, as well as the right for women to stay on in the workforce at the end of the Second World War.
[00:09:32]
David: She was also an early environmentalist and was critical of deforestation and air pollution during debates.
[00:09:38]
Erin: On 4 June 1945, Luckock lost her re-election attempt in her constituency but went on to serve as the president of the Housewives and Consumers Association. She also later organized a petition known as the “March of a Million Names” to protest the rising prices of food and household goods in the post-war years.
[00:10:00]
David: After such an active life, it was a crushing blow when she developed Parkinson’s Disease and could no longer travel and participate in rallies and demonstrations. She spent the last 14 years of her life in the hospital, passing away at the age of 78 in January 1972.
[00:10:16]
Erin: But Rae Luckock wasn’t the only woman to be elected in 1943, Agnes Macphhail also won a seat in the same election in the Toronto riding of York East.
[00:10:27]
David: Agnes Campbell Macphail was born on March 24, 1890, in Grey County, in Ontario. Born into a farming family, she wanted to pursue her education and so she attended the Owen Sound Collegiate and Vocational Institute for one year before transferring to the Stratford Normal School so she could complete her studies while boarding with a relative. From there, she graduated with a second-class teacher's certificate in 1910.
[00:10:50]
Erin: Macphail taught in several rural schools throughout Alberta and Ontario before becoming more actively involved in politics and joining the aforementioned United Farmers of Ontario [UFO] and its women’s organization, the United Farm Women of Ontario.
[00:11:07]
David: In 1921 she ran and won a seat in the House of Commons in Ottawa, becoming the first woman elected at the federal Parliament in Canada. She entered politics to represent the farmers of her region, but she also championed the rights of miners, immigrants, prisoners, women, and other marginalized groups.
[00:11:25]
Erin: One of Macphail’s greatest accomplishments was her role in reforming the Canadian penitentiary system after seeing the shocking conditions at the Kingston Penitentiary. She argued that prisoners should be reformed and educated, and that corporal punishment should be reduced. Her findings led to a Royal Commission, and as a result, the Penitentiary Bill of 1939 made 88 recommendations to improve prison conditions.
[00:11:53]
David: She was an outspoken advocate of gender equity and strove to end legal discrimination against women, including modifying the grounds for divorce. Agnes Macphail continued to support women’s rights when she was elected as one of Ontario’s first female MPPs in 1943. Fun fact: New MPPs are usually sworn in in alphabetical order. Because of this, Rae Luckock should have been the first woman ever sworn in as an MPP, but she deferred so that Agnes Macphail could have that honour, in recognition of Macphail's long career as a federal Member of Parliament.
[00:12:26]
Erin: While in office, Agnes Macphail played an integral role in passing the Employees Fair Remuneration Act of 1951, Ontario’s first equal pay legislation. This was her final political success, as she lost her seat shortly thereafter.
[00:12:43]
David: After losing her seat, Macphail continued to work for equality of all people, but she struggled with poor health and limited income.
[00:12:50]
Erin: Agnes Macphail passed away on February 13, 1954, at the age of 63, in Toronto, just before being offered an appointment to the Senate of Canada. That would have made her one of the first female Senators in the country as well.
[00:13:05]
David: Fun fact: Because of her contributions to politics in Canada and for being the fist woman elected both federally and provincially, Agnes Macphail appears on the 2017 "Canada 150" edition of the Canadian ten-dollar bill, making her the first woman other than the sovereign to have a permanent spot on a piece of Canadian currency.
[00:13:25]
Erin: Both Rae Luckock and Agnes Macphail were trailblazers in their own right – fighting for the rights of minorities, women, workers, and their constituents with passion and dedication. Some of the causes that they were concerned about still resonate today.
[00:13:40]
David: Not only that, but after Macphail lost her seat in 1951, Ontario waited until 1963 for another woman to be elected - Ada Pritchard. Following that, two women were elected in 1971, Margaret Birch and Margaret Scrivener.
[00:13:55]
Erin: Since then, the number of women elected to each parliament in Ontario has fluctuated over the years, but recently, the trend seems to be on the rise, with the number of female MPPs currently sitting at 47.
[00:14:08]
David: No doubt, Margaret Haile, Rae Luckock, and Agnes Macphail inspired many generations of women to follow in their path as they took the first steps on a very important road to female participation at Ontario’s Legislature.
[00:14:21]
Erin: In honour of Women’s History Month, we wanted to recognize these three women in particular for the impact they had on paving the way for so many others.
[00:14:31]
David: Well said Erin.
[00:14:32]
Erin: Why thank you David. But I think that about brings us to the end of our episode today. And what an episode it was!
[00:14:40]
David: I couldn’t agree more! And I feel like we were on a roll with the fun facts this time! How many did we get?
[00:14:45]
Erin: You’re right David! By my count, we managed to get 5 this month!
[00:14:50]
Erin: Not too shabby at all!
[00:14:51]
Erin: Thanks for listening to the ON Parliament Podcast, where we help spread the word on Parliament. But we’ve got to go, I think I hear the bells.
[00:14:58]
David: Bye for now and happy Women’s History Month!
[00:15:09]
Erin: The ON Parliament podcast is produced by Parliamentary Protocol and Public Relations for the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Social media by Parliamentary Protocol and Public Relations for the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Additional research provided by the Table Research Office for the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please support the podcast by sharing it with others and subscribing. For more fun facts about Ontario’s parliament, follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @onparleducation. Et en français : @parloneducation. Thanks again and see you next time.