Who was the first woman elected to the House of Commons, in 1921?
- Agnes Macphail
- Dr. Emily Stowe
- Kim Campbell
- Nellie McClung
Answer: Agnes Macphail
Agnes Macphail, a farmer and teacher, became the first woman Member of Parliament in 1921, only three years after most women won the federal vote. Dr. Emily Stowe was a different pioneer: the founder of the women’s suffrage movement in Canada.
Learn more: Women get the vote
- The effort by women to win the vote is called the women’s suffrage movement.
- Its founder in Canada was Dr. Emily Stowe, the first Canadian woman to practise medicine in Canada.
- In 1916 Manitoba became the first province to give women the vote.
- In 1917 Sir Robert Borden’s federal government gave the vote first to nurses at the front, then to women related to men in active wartime service.
- In 1918 most Canadian women aged 21 and over won the right to vote in federal elections.
- In 1921 Agnes Macphail, a farmer and teacher, became the first woman Member of Parliament.
- Thanks to Thérèse Casgrain and others, Quebec gave women the vote in 1940.