October 18 marks 92 years since women were deemed eligible to sit in the Senate in Canada

C/O Yoohyun Park

Persons Day commemorates the well-known Persons Case, when women were included in the definition of “persons”

On Oct. 18, Canadians celebrated Persons Day, the annual commemoration of the case of Edwards v. Canada, more commonly known as the Persons Case. This case took place in 1929 and ruled that women should be included in the legal definition of “persons,” making them eligible to sit in the Senate of Canada.  

When the British North America Act of 1867 outlined the governmental structure of Canada, the act used the pronoun “he” to refer to a single person, but it used the term “persons” when referring to multiple people. Because of this, the term “persons” was commonly interpreted as being only applicable to men. 

The BNA Act used the word “persons” when describing those who were eligible to sit in the Senate, and, due to the common legal interpretation of the word “persons,” this meant that only men were permitted to be involved. 

In 1927, Nellie McClung, Henrietta Edwards, Emily Murphy, Irene Parlby and Louise McKinney, known as the Famous Five, challenged the legal definition of “persons,” arguing that women should be included in the definition and should therefore be able to sit in the Senate. 

On Oct. 18, 1929, the Famous Five won their case, marking Persons Day in Canadian history. 

At McMaster University, Karen Balcom, a professor in the department of gender and social justice, explained that this day was an important legal milestone for women in Canada. At this point, women had the right to vote federally and provincially everywhere except in Quebec and had the ability to run for office. 

“The Persons Day decision was one of the last barriers standing in the way of the participation of white women in the political state in Canada,” said Balcom. 

However, although the Persons Case was instrumental for women’s rights, it also did not address the ongoing exclusion of women of colour from the political sphere. 

Balcom cited numerous examples of race-based disenfranchisement in Canada in place at the time of the Persons Case victory. Saskatchewan didn’t allow Chinese people to vote, and Japanese people who had been expelled from BC were disallowed from voting federally in 1944. These and other restrictions on Asian-Canadian political rights were not lifted until 1948. Indigenous people were required to renounce their Indigenous status in order to vote, which remained the case until 1960. 

“It’s, in some ways, a culmination of a first wave feminism battle for women’s political rights, for all that is important and for all that is tremendously flawed and limited. It’s really important that we can [recognize that] this was an important legal standard and eventually came to apply to many intersectional kinds of women, but it’s not the case that all of a sudden in October 1929 Canadian women at large had equal access to the political system. They did not,” said Balcom. 

Balcom highlighted that, even in 2021, not all Canadians have equal access to the political system. Balcom cited health and ability status, status as housed or unhoused and documentation status in the country as barriers to the voting rights of Canadians in the present. 

“Every social movement — [whether] it’s feminism [or] any other social movement — has to be continually interrogating itself and continually coming to terms with pasts that are exclusionary,” said Balcom. 

Balcom highlighted that, in gender and social justice research at McMaster, this continued consideration of the accomplishments and exclusions of social movements is key. 

“I know of many, many people who are devoted to this process of thinking about an intersectional analysis of power, inclusion and exclusion,” Balcom said.