The Women's Suffrage Clauses were rejected by 51 ayes, 78 noes, after a debate extending over thirty-one consecutive hours.
It was ten years before any further effort was made to secure the Parliamentary Franchise. In 1894 a petition for this, in behalf of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, supplemented by memorials from the Provinces, was presented by Sir James Grant to the House of Commons, and by the Hon. Mr. Scott to the Senate, but no resolution was offered. A Bill introduced by Mr. Dickey, dealing with the electoral franchise, contained a clause asking suffrage for widows and spinsters, but the Bill was read only once. Mr. Davis, unsolicited, brought in a resolution for Women's Franchise on the same terms as men. Forty members voted for it, one hundred and five against it.
A petition for the Parliamentary Franchise for women, very largely signed by Federal voters throughout the Dominion, was presented to the House of Commons and the Senate in 1896. This was the last effort in the Parliament, and as a change has since been made in the Electoral Act, making the voters' list for the Dominion coincide with the Provincial lists, the battle will therefore have to be fought out in each separate Province.
THE PRESENT POLITICAL CONDITION.[1]
Women in Canada have no vote for any law maker, either Federal or Provincial. Their franchise is confined to municipalities, which can only make by-laws that relate to the execution of existing laws. But although women have no direct vote, they have, by much labor and united effort, effected some important changes in the criminal code and civil laws, as well as in the political position of women in the municipalities. The societies which have accomplished the most, if not all, of these changes are the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the Women's Enfranchisement Association and the National Council of Women.
In the Province of Ontario, in 1884, widows and spinsters were given the Municipal Franchise on the same terms as men.
- ↑ This portion of the report is condensed by the editors of the History from a chapter written by Mrs. Henrietta Muir Edwards for "The Women of Canada, Their Life and Work," a handbook prepared by the National Council of Women, at the request of the Canadian Government, for the Paris Exposition of 1900.
