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still developing more or lessindependently, each with its own character rootedin its traditions, demography and geography.Inevitably, these differences were reflected in theprovincial electoral laws that were to determinewho could vote in federal elections for the firsttwo decades of Confederation.

A Federal or a Provincial MatterIt was 1885 before Parliament took action.TheConservatives under Sir John A. Macdonald hadbeen unable to reach consensus on a single set of voting eligibility criteria, while the Liberals,who supported a decentralized federation, wantedeligibility to remain under provincial control.

In 1885, however, Macdonald’s governmentfinally succeeded in having a law passed that gave Parliament control of the right to vote.Theprovinces regained control 13 years later, however,under a Liberal government led by Sir WilfridLaurier. As a result, in 10 of the 13 federal generalelections held between 1867 and 1920, the electorate

varied from province to province, with eligibilitydetermined by provincial law.

The original colonies continued to adopt or adjust their electoral laws to meet their needsand circumstances. In addition, not long afterConfederation, Canada experienced a huge terri-torial expansion that produced new provinces andterritories, each of which adopted its own electorallegislation, adding further to interjurisdictionaldiversity in the electorate. Citizens of BritishColumbia and Manitoba took part in their firstfederal general election in 1872, Prince EdwardIsland in 1874, the Northwest Territories in 1887,Yukon in 1904, and Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1908.

Other factors, both regional and national,affected evolution of the right to vote during thisperiod.These included demographic change, largelythe result of massive immigration; urbanizationand industrialization, and the accompanyingenfranchisement of workers; and the emergence ofa number of groups promoting women’s suffrage.First Nations people were still effectively denied

After the ElectionsAppearing first in the CanadianIllustrated News after the Quebecelection of May 1, 1878, this car-toon by André Leroux of Montréalwas adapted for the cover of theNews after Sir John A. Macdonald’sLiberal-Conservatives defeatedAlexander Mackenzie’s governmentlater that year.

40A History of the Vote in Canada


access to the franchise either directly or indirectlyat the regional and national levels.

Canada’s geographic expansion in the secondhalf of the nineteenth century was matched bypopulation growth that continued into the earlydecades of the twentieth century. Between 1871and 1921, the population more than doubled, fromfour million to more than eight and a half million.Growth was largely the result of immigration,although not all regions were equally affected.ThePrairie provinces and, to a lesser degree, Ontario andQuebec attracted the largest numbers of immigrants.Over this period, the population of the Prairiesshot up from 75,000 to almost two million.

Although many immigrants were of Britishorigin, a large proportion were from Eastern Europeand Asia. In provinces where immigrants of neitherBritish nor French origin formed a sizable minority,concerns about the electoral effects of the “ethnicfactor” tended to be reflected in electoral legislation.Conversely, in provinces where the existing popu-lation did not feel threatened by the arrival ofimmigrants of different ethnic origins, ethnicitywas not an important factor in voting eligibility.

Over the same period, urbanization and indus-trialization led to the emergence of workers’ groupsseeking to broaden the electorate.This is not surprising, given that in almost all provinces, the

Yukon’s First Wholly ElectedCouncil, 1908Voters elected two members for each of the territory’s five constituencies (Klondyke, Bonanza,Whitehorse, North Dawson andSouth Dawson). George Black (top row, second from right) alsorepresented Yukon in Parliamentfrom 1921 to 1935 and 1940 to 1949. Martha Louise Black, his wife, held the seat while hewas ill (1935–1940) and wasCanada’s second female memberof Parliament.

Chapter 2 – From a Privilege to a Right, 1867–1919

41


right to vote depended on property ownershipor, in some cases, income level.These restrictionsremained in force until the beginning of thetwentieth century and persisted even longer insome provinces.

Property- or income-based qualifications effec-tively prevented large segments of the workingpopulation from voting. During the last quarterof the nineteenth century, most workers earnedmodest if not miserable incomes, and the vastmajority were unlikely to own their own homes.In such conditions, any property-based qualification,no matter how minimal, was prohibitive.When thelabour movement began to organize in the early1870s, its representatives immediately demandedthat the franchise be extended to lower-incomegroups. Some 20 years later, they demanded univer-sal suffrage. It is difficult to know to what extentthe demands of workers contributed to improvingelectoral legislation. One thing is certain: startingat the turn of the century, the provinces progres-sively eliminated property- and income-basedrestrictions on voting eligibility.

Questionable Election PracticesIn the early days of Confederation, any individualwho met the voting eligibility criteria could, intheory, exercise the right to vote. In fact, becauseof electoral practices common in those tumultuoustimes – when the value of a single vote was directlyproportional to the limited number of electors –large numbers of electors were deprived of thatright or obliged to cast their votes for a candidateselected by someone else.

Some of the rules in effect at that time didnothing to promote fair and equitable polling


The Changing ElectorateAn expanded franchise brought new

participants to politics. The Mechanicsand Labourers of Ottawa presented a

scroll (left) to Sir John A. Macdonald in 1878 “in sympathy with Liberal

Conservative Rule.” But a 1900 poll bookfor Pictou, Nova Scotia (above), shows

that income was still a voting qualification.Researchers use poll books to link socio-

economic, occupational and religiouschanges in the electorate to voting patterns.

In 1985, renovators found this and dozensmore poll books in the former home of Henri

Lamothe, the federal official in charge of elections at the turn of the century; Lamothe

had used them to insulate his attic.


practices. In all provinces but New Brunswick,which had adopted the secret ballot in 1855, electorsvoted orally, a polling method manifestly open toblackmail and intimidation.

Furthermore, in all provinces except Nova Scotiaand Prince Edward Island, elections were held ondifferent dates in different ridings.The systemallowed the party in power to hold elections in asafe riding first, hoping in this way to influence thevote in constituencies less favourable to them.Thesystem even enabled a candidate who lost in oneriding to run again in another. In the 1867 generalelection, the Conservatives stretched the process oversix weeks; in the next election (1872), they draggedit out for nearly three months. (See Appendix fordates and other information on these elections.)

After their 1874 victory, the Liberals passedtwo laws on election procedure. One measurewithdrew the right to vote from a number of

officials, including federally appointed judges andindividuals who worked for candidates during an election (for example, as official agents, clerksor messengers), but this had little effect on theoverall composition of the electorate. However,the measures also included several importantmechanisms to help clean up questionable electionpractices: they introduced the secret ballot andstipulated that votes must be cast on the same day inall constituencies, they required candidates to discloseelection expenses and they transferred hearings oncontested election petitions from parliamentarycommittees to the courts.The reforms cleaned upthe electoral process to some extent (for example, byreducing the use of violence to intimidate voters),but they did not eliminate all abuses.

The figures on members who lost their seatsbecause of fraud or corrupt electoral practicesindicate the extent of the problem. Between 1867and 1873, when petitions protesting the outcomeof an election were presented to a committee ofthe House of Commons, just one of 45 contestedelections was invalidated.When the courts began tolook impartially at claims following adoption ofthe Liberal reforms, the number of voided electionssoared. Between 1874 and 1878, 49 of the 65contested elections submitted to the courts werevoided, forcing nearly one third of the members ofthe House of Commons to resign.The rigorousapproach of the courts appeared to lower theincidence of fraud, at least temporarily. Between1878 and 1887, some 25 members were unseatedfollowing contested elections. Corruption flaredup again, however, between 1887 and 1896, withsome 60 members losing their seats after courtchallenges. By the end of the century, the numberof members convicted of election fraud or corrupt

Last of the Open Ballots, 1872Sketches from the CanadianIllustrated News depict one of thelast open-ballot elections, thisone in Hamilton, Ontario. On theleft, a torchlight parade to drum upvoters. In the centre, successfulcandidates greet their supportersoutside the newspaper office. Onthe right, the crowd’s reaction aseach man declares his vote fromthe hustings.

43Chapter 2 – From a Privilege to a Right, 1867–1919


practices began to decline again – not because ofany improvement in election practices, but becauseof the political parties’ increasing use of “saw-offs” –friendly agreements to withdraw equal numbersof contested election petitions before appealing to the courts.

Fraudulent practices took many and variedforms. One of the most common was to purchasevotes through “treating” (the purchase of foodand drink) or compensation. In addition to cashpayment for votes, candidates or their agents mighthand out alcohol, pork, flour and other foodstuffs.Personation – the illegal practice of voting in theplace of another elector – also occurred on a largescale, especially in urban ridings where populationmobility was much more prevalent.

Another practice was “importing” voters fromthe United States for election day – ferrying inCanadians who had moved to the United States.On March 6, 1891, a Quebec newspaper reportedthe arrival of two Grand Trunk Railway trainscarrying some 2,000 textile workers from theUnited States who were returning home to vote.(Hamelin et al., 108) A decade later in Ontario,the Lake Superior Corporation (later the AlgomaSteel Company) used a tugboat to bring in workersfrom Sault Sainte-Marie, Michigan, to vote in theplace of absent or deceased miners.

Soon after adoption of Macdonald’s ElectoralFranchise Act in 1885, falsification of electoral listsbecame a common practice. Before that date, thelists, drawn up by municipal employees, had givenrise to few complaints. Beginning in 1885, how-ever, the lists were drawn up by persons appointedby the party in power.The name or profession ofan elector was often changed, with the result thatthe person in question was not allowed to votewhen he arrived at the polling station.At the sametime, many individuals became “legally qualified”to vote when false names were added to the listsand the names of persons who had died or movedaway were not deleted.To make matters worse,the lists were not updated regularly.

The 1891 election provides an excellent exam-ple of the combined effects of falsification of listsand lack of regular updating. In Ontario alone,comparison of the electoral lists updated in 1889and census data for the year of the election revealsthe existence of more than 34,000 “floaters” –persons who had died or moved out of the province.Moreover, because the 1891 election was held onthe basis of lists revised two years earlier, tens ofthousands of new electors were disenfranchised. Inthe country as a whole, according to contemporaryaccounts, at least 50,000 and possibly more than100,000 electors were deprived of the right to vote

Campaign Literature, 1872

Malcolm Cameron(1808–1896) used thelatest technology toproduce this colourlithograph supportinghis electoral bid, butvoters chose anothercandidate. Cameronfounded the BathurstCourier at Perth, UpperCanada, in 1833 andwas Queen’s Printer for Canada from 1863to 1869. His printingexperience may haveintroduced him tocolour lithography,which was not usedwidely until later inthe century.


Elections cannot be carried without money. Under an open system of voting, youcan readily ascertain whether the voter has deceived you. Under vote by ballot, anelector may take your money and vote as he likes without detection.

– John H. Cameron, MPHouse of Commons Debates

April 21, 1874


in that election because the electoral lists had notbeen updated or, in some cases, had been falsified.

Intimidation was another method used toinfluence election results.The Catholic clergy, forexample, openly supported the Conservative party inpastoral letters and statements from the pulpit. Someparish priests even threatened their parishionerswith the fires of hell if they voted Liberal.Althoughthe effects of such intimidation were felt mainly inQuebec, where some elections were even voidedbecause of the “undue influence” of the clergy, itwas also a factor in the Maritimes, Ontario andManitoba – until Rome and the courts reined inthese tendencies around the turn of the century.

Intimidation by employers, though undoubtedlyless widespread than the influence of the clergy,was nonetheless a factor. Employers threatened toreduce the wages of, or even fire, those who didnot vote for the “right” candidate.The March 10,1896, edition of La Patrie published the text of

a notice posted on the wall of a Montréal manufacturing concern:

We feel it is only fair to notify employeesthat, in case of a change in government[Conservative], we will be unable toguarantee the wages you are now beingpaid; neither will we be able to guaranteework of any kind to all the employeesemployed by us at this time.

Hamelin et al., 109, translation

To the range of questionable election practicesalready described must be added the inappropriateuse of public funds for election purposes, illegalelection expenses, falsification of ballots and dis-honesty, or even incompetence, among electionpersonnel. In 1891, a returning officer in the Algomariding said that he could distinguish between maleand female “Indians” only on the basis of theirclothing. Organizers for the Conservative candi-date seized the opportunity: the men voted first,then lent their clothing to the women so theycould vote.

The Electoral Mosaic, 1867–1885From 1867 to 1885, five federal general electionswere held, with the electorate varying fromprovince to province under the provincial electorallaws then in force. In all provinces, there were threebasic conditions for becoming an elector: beingmale, having reached the age of 21 and being aBritish subject by birth or naturalization.The otherconditions varied according to the electoral law ofeach province.Tables 2.1 and 2.2 give an overviewof the diversity of conditions in effect.

Nominations, 1871-StyleSketch of the nominations inMontreal Centre for the Quebecprovincial election held in 1871. The name of the artist is not known.


45


Except in British Columbia, the main restric-tions on entitlement to vote were property- orincome-based qualifications, which establishedfour classes of citizens: those who owned realproperty of a minimum value, those who leasedor occupied a property of a minimum value orpaid an annual rent of a minimum value, thosewho owned personal property or a combinationof personal and real property of a minimum com-bined value and those who earned a minimumannual income. As Table 2.1 shows, electors werefar from being equal across the country on thebasis of these criteria.

For property owners, the required value ofreal property varied by as much as $300 from oneprovince to another. Conditions for tenants and forthose who qualified on the basis of owning a com-bination of real and/or personal property alsovaried widely. Finally, two provinces linked theright to vote to a minimum annual income: inOntario, the minimum was $250; in NewBrunswick, it was $400.

Three provinces – Ontario, Manitoba andBritish Columbia – imposed racial restrictions.Before Confederation, just one of the colonieshad decreed that “Indians” could not vote. Nova

Table 2.1Property and Income Qualifications: Minimum Conditions Required to Vote in Federal Elections,1867–1885

Province Value of real property, whether occupied Amount of annual rent Annual incomeby owners or tenants

Owner or Tenant, co-tenant Tenant, co-tenantco-owner1 or occupant1 or occupant1

Urban area Rural area Urban area Rural area Urban area Rural area

Nova Scotia2 $150 $150 – –

Quebec $300 $200 – $30 $20 –

Ontario3 $200 $100 $200 $100 – $250 (urban residents)

Manitoba4 $100 $200 $20 –

New Brunswick5 $1006 – – $400

Prince Edward Those under 60 years of age had to make an annual contribution of four days’ work to maintain Island and build highways or the equivalent in cash; those over age 60 had to own real estate that

generated a minimum annual income of $8.

British Columbia7 No property or income qualifications.

Notes:

1. The amounts indicated apply toeach individual elector, includingco-owners and co-tenants (e.g. fortwo co-tenants, the minimum valueof the dwelling would be twice theamount stated in the table).

2. In Nova Scotia, the right to votewas given to the sons of anyonequalified to vote, on condition thatthe total value of the father’s (ormother’s, if the father was deceased)property was sufficient to qualifyhim to vote and that the son hadnot been absent from the familyhome for more than four monthsduring the year preceding an elec-tion. Individuals whose total realand/or personal property was valuedat at least $300 were also qualifiedto vote.

3. In Ontario, the right to vote wasgenerally given to all residentswhose names were included on aproperty assessment roll. An electorwhose name did not appear on alist had to be, for at least six monthsbefore an election, the owner ortenant of real property granted bythe Crown whose value met therequirements of the property quali-fications then in effect.

4. In Manitoba, the right to vote wasalso given to any occupant of adwelling located on land fromwhich it was possible to deriveincome of at least $20 per year. Inall cases, the period of residencywas at least three months before an election.

5. Personal and/or real property of atotal value of $400 also entitled indi-viduals to vote in New Brunswick.

6. Property owners only.

7. In British Columbia, all electorshad to have lived in the provincefor at least 12 months and in theriding for at least two monthsbefore an election.



Table 2.2Categories of Citizens Ineligible to Vote, 1867–1885

Nova Scotia 1. Any person who, during the 15 days preceding the election, was remunerated by the government as an employee of one of the following:• post office • customs • lighthouses • Crown land office• public works • mines • railroads • department of revenue

2. Any person in need who received social assistance or assistance in any amount from a charitable organization during the year precedingthe election.

Quebec 1. Any person remunerated by the government as an employee of one of the following:• post office (cities and towns) • customs • Crown land officeor holder of one of the following positions:• judge of the superior court, court of Queen’s bench, vice-admiralty court, sessions court or municipal court• district magistrate • secretary, undersecretary or clerk of the Crown• sheriff or assistant sheriff • officer or member of a provincial or municipal police force

2. Any person who collected federal or provincial duties, including excise duties, in the name of Her Majesty.

Ontario 1. Any person of Indian origin or partly Indian blood, not enfranchised, who resided on a reserve located in a riding where no electorallist existed and who benefited from amounts paid, in the form of annuities, interest or other funds, to the tribe or band of which theperson was a member.

2. Any person who, during the 15 days preceding the election, was remunerated by the government as an employee of one of the following:• post office (cities and towns) • customs • Crown land officeor holder of one of the following positions:• judge • chancellor and vice-chancellor of the province • Crown clerk or assistant clerk• registrar general • prosecutor in a county court • sheriff or assistant sheriff

3. Any person collecting excise duties on behalf of Her Majesty.4. Any person acting as returning officer or election clerk (deputy returning officers and poll clerks retained the right to vote).5. Any person working in any capacity for a candidate before or during an election.6. Any stipendiary magistrate (i.e. paid by an individual).

Manitoba 1. Any person of Indian origin who received an annuity from the Crown.2. Any person holding one of the following positions:

• judge of the court of Queen’s bench, a county court or a municipal court • Crown clerk • registrar general• clerk of a county court • sheriff or assistant sheriff

British Columbia 1. Any person of Indian origin.2. Any immigrant of Chinese origin.3. Any person holding one of the following positions:

• employee of the customs department • employee of the federal government responsible for collecting excise duties• judge of the Supreme Court or a county court • stipendiary magistrate • police constable or police officer

4. Any employee of the federal government paid an annual salary (except postal employees).5. Any employee of the provincial government paid an annual salary.6. Any teacher paid by the government of the province.7. Any person previously found guilty of treason, serious crimes or other offences, unless he had been pardoned or served his sentence.


47


Scotia explicitly excluded Indians from the elec-torate in 1854 when it abolished property-basedqualifications; when the province re-establishedthese qualifications in 1863, it repealed the exclu-sion clause. In practice, in Nova Scotia as elsewhere,Indian persons were not entitled to vote because,under federal law, virtually none of them heldproperty as individuals.

Soon after Confederation, Ontario decreedthat, in places where no electoral lists existed, only“enfranchised Indians” – persons who had renouncedtheir Indian status – could vote. If they wanted to exercise their right to vote, they could not be“residing among the Indians” or benefiting fromamounts paid to a tribe or band in the form ofannuities, interest or other funds. In ridings whereelectoral lists were drawn up, enfranchised Indianswho did not reside among the Indians were eligibleto vote, even if they received a portion of an amountpaid to a tribe or band. In practice, however, thismeasure affected few people. In Ontario at thattime, the number of enfranchised Indians couldbe counted on the fingers of one hand. Between1867 and 1920, in all of Canada, a mere 250 Indianpersons were enfranchised.We have no record ofothers who might have been covered by the termsof the legislation and could therefore have voted;their numbers were certainly not legion.

In Manitoba, Indians who received a benefitfrom the Crown were not entitled to vote. InBritish Columbia, neither Indian persons nor resi-dents of Chinese descent could vote.Although therewere very few immigrants of Asian origin in BritishColumbia at that time, Indian peoples accountedfor more than half the province’s population.

At the same time, all provinces except NewBrunswick and Prince Edward Island denied the

vote to certain government employees. Here, too,there was considerable inconsistency among theprovinces. In Nova Scotia, for example, postalemployees did not have the vote; in British Columbiaand Manitoba, they did; in Quebec and Ontario,only rural postmasters were eligible to vote.

Amendments to provincial election lawsbetween 1867 and 1885 did little to increase thenumber of electors, except in Ontario, whereproperty requirements were reduced significantly,and in Nova Scotia, where the voting privilegesof property owners were extended to tenants. Atthe same time, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario andManitoba extended the right to vote to co-ownersand co-tenants of property assessed at a value that,if divided among the co-owners or co-tenants,fulfilled the property qualifications in effect foreach individual. Considering the economic con-ditions of the period, this measure probably affectedonly a small number of individuals.

Macdonald Centralizes the FranchiseOn July 27, 1885, Conservative Prime MinisterSir John A. Macdonald wrote to his friend CharlesTupper, “On the twentieth we closed the mostharassing and disagreeable session I have ever wit-nessed in forty years.” But he went on to add,“Iconsider the passage of the Franchise Bill thegreatest triumph of my life.” (Stewart, 3)

Why was Macdonald – who had won manyother significant victories in his 40-year politicalcareer – so pleased with the bill? An ardent cen-tralist, Macdonald had little use for provincialgovernments; if it had been up to him, they mighthave been abolished at Confederation. In the yearspreceding his franchise bill, the struggle between



the dominion and the provinces had intensified.Ontario, led by Oliver Mowat’s Liberals, had wonbattles with the federal government on provincialboundaries and alcohol licensing.There seemed tobe the risk of a snowball effect: in Nova Scotia,also led by a Liberal government, withdrawal fromConfederation was touted as a real possibility. Inthis context, Macdonald could no longer allowthe provinces to control the entitlement to votein federal elections.

He tabled a bill giving full control of the fran-chise to the federal government.The bill led tounprecedented debate in the House of Commons.

Between April 16 and July 6, 1885, membersengaged in heated discussion of every facet of the legislation, often late into the night.The gov-ernment finally had to concede a number ofamendments.The result was an extremely complexelections act that, instead of producing a uniformCanadian electorate, diversified the electorateeven more.

At a time when Ontario was preparing toexpand access to the vote, Macdonald contrivedto keep the property-based qualification. Alongwith most members of his party, he had a pro-found aversion to universal suffrage, which heconsidered one of the greatest evils that couldbefall a country. Perhaps convinced that mostwomen were conservative, Macdonald suggestedgiving the vote to widows and spinsters whoowned property. He backed down, however, in theface of objections from some of his own members,and the suspicion remains that Macdonald hadinserted the clause as a sacrificial lamb, neverintending that it survive final reading of the bill.

Macdonald’s 1885 Electoral Franchise Act retainedthe three basic conditions common to all theprovinces (being male, having reached the age of 21 and being a British subject by birth or naturalization).The property-based qualificationdiffered according to whether an individual livedin an urban or a rural riding. Furthermore, inurban areas, it varied according to whether anelector lived in a city or a town (a distinctionbased on population size).Table 2.3 summarizesthe resulting franchise across the country.

For example, to be qualified to vote in a city,a man was required to own real property valuedat $300 or more.The occupant in good faith of a property of the same value was also qualified

Macdonald’s Admission, 1873The caption below this cartoon,published on September 26, 1873,quoted The Mail of the same date:“We in Canada seem to have lostall idea of justice, honor andintegrity.” Macdonald’s support inthe House of Commons declinedafter revelations that he hadaccepted campaign donationsfrom Sir Hugh Allan, with whomhe was negotiating governmentrailway contracts. His governmentresigned on November 6.


49


to vote.Tenants who paid a monthly rent of atleast $2 or an annual rent of at least $20 couldalso vote, as could persons whose annual income was at least $300. Sons of owners or widows of owners whose total property value, dividedamong them, was sufficient to confer the right to vote on each of them, were qualified to vote,on the condition that a son had lived with hismother or father for one year with no breaklonger than four months. Furthermore, all electorsexcept property owners were subject to a one-year residency requirement.

Prince Edward Island and British Columbia,where there had been no property-based qualifica-tion, received special treatment. In both provinces,anyone who already had the right to vote whenthe 1885 act was passed continued to enjoy thatright; however, those who reached the age of 21after that date were subject to the same propertyor income qualifications as those in effect in theother provinces.

The property-based qualifications set by theElectoral Franchise Act clearly favoured rural residentsover urban dwellers. Furthermore, the qualifications

Notes:

1. Under the terms of the ElectoralFranchise Act of 1885, voting quali-fications were the same in allprovinces except Prince EdwardIsland and British Columbia. Inthose two provinces, where noprovincially established qualificationsexisted, anyone who had the rightto vote at the time the 1885 actcame into effect kept that right;those who reached the age of 21after that date had to meet thesame qualifications as those in theother provinces.

2. The right to vote was given to sonsof owners and tenants, on conditionthat the minimum value of thefather’s (or mother’s, if the fatherwas deceased) dwelling was sufficientto qualify him for the vote and theson had resided in the family homefor 12 months without being absentfor more than four or six months(depending on whether they livedin an urban or a rural area). In ruralareas, owners’ sons could be absentfor more than six months withoutlosing the right to vote if the rea-son for absence was working as asailor or fisherman or attending aneducational institution in Canada.

3. A city was a town with a populationexceeding a number established by law.

4. Fishermen who owned real propertyand fishing gear (boats, nets, fishinggear and tackle) of a total value ofat least $150 were also qualified to vote.


Table 2.3Minimum Conditions Required to Vote in Federal Elections, 18851

Category Value of real property, whether occupied by Amount of annual rent Annual incomeowners or tenants

Owner or Tenant, co-tenant Tenant or co-tenant2

co-owner2 or occupant2

Urban area $300 (cities)3 $2/month or $20/year $300$200 (towns)

Rural area $1504 $2/month or $20/year $300

... there is so little likelihood of detection, [and] the price paid for passing falsevotes is so tempting, that unless severe measures are employed, there will alwaysbe persons willing to undertake the business.

– Herbert Brown Amesquoted in John English

The Decline of Politics, 1977


were set higher than they had been before in mostprovinces.The act did give the vote to new classesof persons, on certain conditions, including fisher-men, property owners’ sons and farmers’ sons(although they already had the vote in BritishColumbia and Prince Edward Island). At the sametime, however, the act made it more difficult forsmall property owners and some tenants to obtainthe right to vote.

Comparing tables 2.1 and 2.3 shows thatproperty owners saw the most significant increasein voting qualifications. In New Brunswick andManitoba, the required value of property tripled forcities and doubled for towns; in rural areas, it roseby 33 percent. In Nova Scotia, it doubled for citiesand climbed by 33 percent for towns, but remainedthe same in rural areas. In Ontario, the propertyqualification rose by 33 percent for both rural andurban areas. In Quebec, it remained unchanged forurban areas and fell by 25 percent for rural areas.

The situation with regard to tenants is moredifficult to pin down. In the provincial laws thathad previously applied, eligibility to vote was relatedto the value of leased property rather than the annualrent paid, making comparisons difficult. Under the1885 act, at least some tenants became new membersof the electorate. In New Brunswick, where no ten-ant had had the vote, the new law enfranchised thosewho paid the minimum required rent. In Manitobaand rural Quebec, the annual rent requirement wasunchanged; in Quebec cities, it dropped by onethird. Elsewhere, it can be assumed that the newlaw affected tenants adversely to the extent that therequired value of leased property rose significantly.

Because we do not know the number of citizensin each category, it is impossible to arrive at anaccurate figure for the electorate as a whole. It canbe assumed, however, that the new electoral lawreduced the overall size of the electorate. Residentsof two provinces – British Columbia and PrinceEdward Island, where universal male suffrage hadalmost been achieved – were clear losers. In theseprovinces, those who already had the right to votekept it. But others reaching voting age were subjectto the property-based requirements, which inevitablyreduced the relative size of the electorate.The citizens

The Last Hurrah, 1891The name of the artist responsiblefor this familiar campaign poster –appealing to voters’ fondness for the dominion’s first prime minister – has not survived the years.


51


of two other provinces were clear losers as a result ofthe changes: Ontario, because it was the most urban-ized province and the legislation favoured ruralresidents, and Nova Scotia.These two provinces, bothwith Liberal governments in power, were precisely theprovinces that had caused the biggest headaches forthe Conservative government in Ottawa in the matterof the division of powers. In just one province –Quebec, a Conservative stronghold since 1867 – didthe size of the electorate appear to have increased.

The 1885 act was more lenient than most ofthe previous provincial acts in terms of the rightto vote of judges and some classes of governmentemployees. Only the chief justice and justices of theSupreme Court of Canada and the chief justicesand magistrates of provincial superior courts wereprohibited from voting. Furthermore, some electionofficials (returning officers, poll clerks and revisers)were allowed to vote, but only in a riding otherthan the one where they worked.This rule alsoapplied to all individuals who worked for a candi-date in any capacity before or during an election.

The new election law retained existing racialrestrictions and even disenfranchised some Indians inQuebec and the Maritimes. Persons of “Mongolianand Chinese race” were expressly deprived of theright to vote. According to John A. Macdonald,persons of Chinese origin ought not to have a votebecause they had “no British instincts or Britishfeelings or aspirations.” (Roy, 152) Furthermore, theIndians of Manitoba, British Columbia, Keewatinand the Northwest Territories had no vote, andthose living on reserves elsewhere in Canada wererequired to own and occupy a piece of land thathad been improved to a minimum value of $150.

Macdonald was pleased, not only with recover-ing control of the franchise but also with ensuring

that, from then on, the electoral lists would be drawnup by revisers appointed by the governor generalin council, that is, by the government in power.These lists were the keystone of the electoral system.If an elector’s name was missing from the list, hecould not exercise his right to vote. Macdonaldhimself, on the advice of his supporters, appointedthe revisers. Over the years, he established a com-plex countrywide network of his own appointees,which he controlled completely and effectively.

Laurier Decentralizes the FranchiseFor the Liberals, the 1885 election legislation was abitter pill to swallow.They had only to wait for theright moment to change track. Macdonald died

Perennial Issue?Macdonald’s Conservatives tried topersuade voters that a policy ofreciprocity – one of the planks inthe 1891 election platform of theLiberal party – amounted to sellingCanada to the United States. TheConservatives were successful, butSir John A. Macdonald died threemonths after winning the election.



in June of 1891.Without him at the helm, theConservatives soon foundered, and the Liberalsunder Wilfrid Laurier took power in 1896.WhenCharles Fitzpatrick, the solicitor general, tabled a proposed new electoral law in the House ofCommons, he said that, since 1885, preparation ofthe electoral lists had cost the public coffers morethan $1,141,000, an enormous amount for that time.

The new act, which took effect on June 13,1898, was designed to correct the situation bygiving the provinces responsibility for drawing upelectoral lists and, once again, control of the rightto vote in federal elections.The situation hadregressed to pre-1885, including significantinequality among electors in different provinces.

To mitigate these disparities, the new federal lawspecified that the provinces were not empowered

to disqualify voters. More specifically, the provinceswere prohibited from excluding a citizen, other-wise qualified to vote, from exercising the right tovote on the grounds that he practised a particularprofession or carried on a particular occupation,worked for the federal government or a provincialgovernment, or belonged to any class of persons.As a result, citizens of Chinese or Japanese descentliving in British Columbia obtained the right tovote in federal elections (even though they wereexcluded from provincial elections), as did federaland provincial government employees in NovaScotia, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Ontarioand Manitoba.

The situation with regard to “Indians” was lessclear-cut. At first glance, the wording of the actseems to suggest that Indians were also excludedfrom disqualification by provinces.There wereindications, however, that in the minds of the legislators, Indians did not belong to “any class ofpersons.” Until that time, the Liberals had alwaysappeared reluctant to give Indians the right tovote. At its 1893 convention, the party made aformal statement condemning any measure of this kind. Later, the federal government refusedIndian persons the right to vote in the NorthwestTerritories and Yukon, both of which were underdirect federal control. It is therefore highly proba-ble that the provisions disqualifying Indians fromvoting in provincial elections applied to federalelections as well.

In 1898, most provinces already applied sig-nificant restrictions on Indians’ right to vote. NoIndian was allowed to vote in British Columbiaor New Brunswick. In Manitoba, the right to votewas reserved for Indian persons who received nobenefit from the Crown and had received no such

Running on Their Record, 1904The Liberals appealed to voterswith a wall of achievement – builtof bricks that included “UnjustFranchise Act Repealed” and“Gerrymander Wiped Out.” (The Liberals also took credit for“Increase of Population” and“Tobacco Industry Promoted.”)Says Miss Canada (left) to WilfridLaurier, “Mr. Foreman you havedone splendidly so far, I count on you and your men to completethe work.”


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benefit during the three years preceding an election.In Ontario, the right was given only to enfran-chised Indians or Indians living outside a reserve,on condition that the latter own real propertyassessed at $200 or more in a city or town or$100 or more in a village or township.This lastcondition was even more discriminatory becauseOntario had abolished all property-based qualifi-cations for non-Aboriginal electors 10 years earlier.

The situation did not improve in the yearsthat followed. In 1915, Quebec withdrew thevoting rights of Indians living on reserves, and byJuly 1919, Indians living on reserves anywhere inthe country were no longer entitled to vote infederal by-elections.

The Liberals’ 1898 election law excluded othergroups as well, among them previously excludedfederally appointed judges. Furthermore, threeclasses of individuals already disqualified from vot-ing in Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick –prison inmates, and residents of lunatic asylumsand charitable institutions receiving assistance froma municipality or the government – were nowdisenfranchised throughout the country. In addi-tion, persons who, before or during an election,were hired by another person and remunerated inany way for working as an agent, clerk, solicitor orlegal counsel were also disenfranchised. Electorsfound guilty of election fraud lost the right to votefor seven years. Finally, returning officers and pollclerks were prohibited from voting in the ridingin which they performed their duties. All theseexclusions remained in force until at least 1920.

The 1898 act specified that the conditions thatqualified a person to vote in a federal electionwere the same as those that qualified the individ-ual to vote in provincial elections in his province

of residence.This principle was more restric-tive than it appeared at first glance. Becausestatutory disqualification was no longerpermitted, the provinces were left withsome half-dozen factors that they coulduse to control the right to vote: age,gender, citizenship, length of residenceand property-based requirements.Thefirst three qualifications were alreadycommon to all provinces. From Atlantic toPacific, only males age 21 or over who wereborn or naturalized British subjects were quali-fied to vote. Residency requirements, whichvaried from province to province, might apply tothe province as a whole, to the electoral districtor to both.

The required length of residence in the provincewas six months in British Columbia and 12 monthseverywhere else; for particular ridings, the provisionsranged from one month to 12 months. Ontario, themost urbanized of the provinces, added a specificprovision with regard to cities and towns, wherechanges of domicile were extremely common.The residency requirement was 12 months in theprovince, three months in the town in questionand one month in the riding.These provisionstightened restrictions on urban electors, who oftenmoved in pursuit of work, without penalizing themtoo harshly.

Before 1920, only two provinces changed theirresidency requirements. In 1907, New Brunswickhalved it, from 12 months to six.The same year,Ontario relaxed its 12-month residency requirementto include residence anywhere in the country,though the additional residency requirements forurban areas remained in place. A few provincesaccepted the fact that some individuals (loggers,

After the Elections, Part 2The 1878 Quebec provincial election resulted in numerouscartoon depictions of the van-quished and the victor (see alsopage 40). This one, from theCanadian Illustrated News, is by J. W. Bengough of Montréal.

Family Connections, 1902This card urged electors to nominate and vote for T. F. Wallacebut did not achieve its goal: Wallace lost the 1902 by-election.Wallace was likely a relative ofNathaniel Clarke Wallace, memberof Parliament for West York from1878 until his death in 1901, andof Thomas George Wallace, whoheld the seat from 1908 to 1921.



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sailors, students) were occasionally or temporarilyabsent from their usual residence to carry on theiroccupation or attend an educational establishment.In 1900, the federal government decreed that mili-tary personnel and war correspondents did not losethe right to vote because of absence for reasonsof active duty.The measure, which affected allprovinces, was adopted to accommodate Canadiansserving in the Boer War in South Africa.When thewar ended two years later, the privilege grantedto Canadian servicemen remained in place.

Before adoption of the 1898 act, property-basedqualifications were the main curb on expansion ofthe electorate. At that time, this restriction stillexisted in only four provinces: Prince EdwardIsland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Quebec.

In Prince Edward Island, property-based quali-fications affected only persons 60 years of age orover, who were required to own real propertyassessed at at least $100 or generating a minimumannual income of $6. In 1902, the province achieveduniversal male suffrage when it abolished the require-ment.To qualify to vote in New Brunswick, it wasnecessary to own real property assessed at $100 ormore, or real property and personal property witha combined value of $400. Persons earning anannual income of $400 were also qualified to vote.This threshold was very high; at the turn of thecentury, a textile worker, for example, earned anaverage of $240 per year. New Brunswick abolishedproperty- and income-based qualifications in 1916.

In Nova Scotia, the situation had remainedunchanged since 1885.To be qualified to vote inthe province in 1898, it was still necessary to own,rent or occupy property assessed at $150 or more.Furthermore, an individual who owned personalproperty and leased or occupied property whose

value, added to that of the personal property,totalled $300, was qualified to vote. Co-owners,co-tenants, sons of men qualified to vote andwidows who owned, occupied or leased propertywith a value sufficient to confer the right to votecould vote under the same conditions as those thatexisted before 1885.The province later qualifiedas electors persons earning an annual income of atleast $250 and fishermen who owned real property,boats, nets and fishing tackle with a combined valueof $150 or more. Property- and income-basedqualifications were eventually eliminated in theprovince in 1920.

In Quebec, where urbanization was in fullswing, the property-based qualifications in forcein 1898 still favoured residents of rural areas. Inurban areas, owners or occupants in good faith ofpremises assessed at $300 could vote; in rural areas,the minimum required value was just $200. Asimilar disparity existed between tenants in urbanareas, where the minimum annual rent was $30, andtenants in rural areas, where it was $20. Personsreceiving a minimum annual income of $300 werealso qualified to vote. Fishermen could vote if

Broadcasting the News, 1911In the days before mass media, broadcasting an election proclamation required a bucket and paste brush(Lambton County, Ontario, photographer unknown).


The lists used in [the 1908 federal] election were provinciallists which had been compiled two or more years earlier,and contained the names of many dead and absent persons.However, by a custom regarded as common and ordinary, thevotes of the dead and absent were not lost but were madegood use of by both contesting parties.

– Charles G. (“Chubby”) PowerA Party Politician, 1966


they owned boats, nets, seines and fishing tackleworth a total of $150 or more. Furthermore, retiredfarmers and property owners (referred to as lifeannuitants) could also vote if their annuity – incash or in kind – was $100 or more.Teachers wereexempt from any property-based requirement. In1912, Quebec substantially reduced financial quali-fications, a measure that gave the right to vote tothe great majority of men in the province.

The 1898 federal legislation certainly expandedthe Canadian electorate.To what extent? Becausecensuses from that era are relatively unreliable, it isimpossible to say. One thing is certain: when thelegislation was adopted, most provinces, includingOntario (the province with the largest population),had already introduced universal male suffrage. Inthese provinces, therefore, universal male suffragealso applied to federal elections.This was a significantstep forward from Macdonald’s 1885 legislation,which not only maintained the principle of property-or income-based qualifications but even raised theeligibility threshold in most areas of the country.Laurier’s 1898 law broadened the electorate evenfurther by prohibiting provincial disqualificationbased on race or socio-professional characteristics.Nonetheless, two provinces – British Columbia andManitoba – tried to find ways to get around thefederal legislation.

In 1901, British Columbia decreed that no onecould vote if he was unable to read the provincialelection legislation, which was written in English.Naturally, this measure was hostile to the enfranchise-ment of citizens of Chinese or Japanese origin.Thefollowing year, Manitoba adopted a similar strategy:no one was qualified to vote who could not readthe Manitoba elections act in English, French,German, Icelandic or a Scandinavian language;


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this effectively prohibited many immigrants ofPolish, Ukrainian and Russian origin from votingin federal elections.The record does not showwhether the federal government intervened tocounteract these efforts at disenfranchisement.

Borden’s Strategic MeasuresAfter Canada declared war on Germany in August1914, the country fell victim to a wave of collectivehysteria.The commander of the naval yard atEsquimalt, British Columbia, was so fearful of aGerman invasion that he succumbed to nervouscollapse. Fear of spies gave rise to general mistrustof new Canadians, especially those from Germanyor Austria-Hungary.At that time, immigrants fromthese countries accounted for about 5 percent ofthe population of Canada. In October 1914, thefederal government interned foreign nationalsidentified by government officials as a potentialdanger to the country. More than 8,500 individualswere sent to closely guarded internment camps.

Three years later, the war dragged on, andvolunteers for military service had begun to fallshort of requirements. By April 1917, a total of424,526 Canadians had volunteered to serve over-seas. In April, the number of volunteers was only5,530; in May, it was up slightly at 6,407. ButCanadian losses at the front were high: in Aprilalone, 3,600 Canadians were killed and 7,000wounded at the battle of Vimy Ridge.The Con-servative prime minister, Robert Laird Borden,travelled to England and returned shaken by theexperience.To him, there was only one solution: inJune, he tabled a military service bill authorizingthe government to conscript any male personbetween the ages of 18 and 60.

Borden’s government was already in serioustrouble, however, and an election was imminent.Could the conscription issue defeat them at thepolls? This was what was predicted in the West,where the largely immigrant population alreadysympathized strongly with Laurier’s Liberals, andthe conscription issue seemed to be strengtheningthe trend. Across the country, union leaders gotready to do battle with conscriptionists. In Ontario,the rural population opposed conscription, andfrancophone Quebec rejected conscription spon-taneously and massively.

Borden and his government, who saw theirsituation as increasingly desperate, attempted tomodify the composition of the electorate by chang-ing the electoral law. Borden confided to his diary,“Our first duty is to win at any cost the comingelection so that we may continue to do our partin winning the war and that Canada be not dis-graced.” On September 20, 1917, Parliamentadopted not one, but two election acts, thoughBorden had to use closure to push them through.

The first, the Military Voters Act, was designedto increase the number of electors potentiallyfavourable to the government in power. As its titlesuggests, the law defined a military voter as anyBritish subject, male or female, who was an activeor retired member of the Canadian Armed Forces,including Indian persons and persons under 21 yearsof age, independent of any residency requirement,as well as any British subject ordinarily resident inCanada who was on active duty in Europe in theCanadian, British or any other allied army. (Thus,some 2,000 military nurses – the “Bluebirds” –became the first Canadian women to get the vote;see next section.) Furthermore, military voterscould assign their vote to any riding in which they

Making the Vote Accessible,1916–1917Special arrangements for electorsunable to vote because of disability,occupation or assignment abroadwere introduced gradually toimprove access to the vote: thepostal ballot (1915), advancepolling (1920), proxy voting (1970)and level access at polling stations(1992, although level access hadgenerally been available since1988 as a result of ElectionsCanada’s administrative require-ments). These photos showsoldiers voting overseas in thefederal election of December 1917(above) and the British Columbiaelection of September 1916 (right).



had previously been domiciled, failing which theirvote could be assigned by the party of the militaryvoter’s choice to the riding where it would bemost useful. Finally, the act contained a short sec-tion that appeared innocuous but was extremelysignificant: several hundred thousand votes fromoverseas would be counted only 31 days after anelection in Canada.

The second law, the War-time Elections Act,had a dual purpose: to increase the number ofelectors favourable to the government in powerand decrease the number of electors unfavourableto it.The law conferred the right to vote on thespouses, widows, mothers, sisters and daughters ofany persons, male or female, living or dead, whowere serving or had served in the Canadian forces,


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provided they met the age, nationality and resi-dency requirements for electors in their respectiveprovinces or Yukon. It also conferred the right tovote on those who did not own property inaccordance with prevailing provincial law but hada son or grandson in the army. (This provisionaffected only Quebec and Nova Scotia, as theother provinces had already abolished property-and income-based qualifications.)

The act also disenfranchised conscientious objec-tors.This affected Mennonites and Doukhobors,even though the federal government had exemptedthem officially from military service, the formerin 1873 and the latter in 1898. Individuals bornin an enemy country who became naturalizedBritish subjects after March 31, 1902, were alsodisenfranchised, with the exception of those bornin France, Italy or Denmark and who arrived inCanada before the date on which their country oforigin was annexed by Germany or Austria. Alsoincluded were British subjects naturalized afterMarch 31, 1902, whose mother tongue was that ofan enemy country, whether or not the individual’scountry of origin was an ally of Great Britain.Thesame rule applied to persons found guilty of anoffence under the Military Service Act, 1917. Over-all, new Canadians living on the Prairies were themost seriously affected by the War-time ElectionsAct, with tens of thousands being disenfranchised.

Finally, the legislation of September 20, 1917,stripped the provinces of the responsibility fordrawing up electoral lists and gave the task toenumerators appointed by the federal government –in other words, by the Conservatives as the party in power.The president of the Canadian SuffrageAssociation remarked that the act would havebeen more honest if it had simply disenfranchised

everyone who failed to promise to vote for theConservatives! All Borden had to do now was callan election.

But the race was not yet won. One week afterthe two laws were passed, an informant with sourcesin government circles reported to Laurier that theConservatives, fearing defeat, were preparing tomobilize English-Canadian opinion against FrenchCanada.Who among Borden’s inner circle haddevised the strategy? One thing was certain: Bordendid not reject it. In the next few months, theEnglish-language press painted a picture of Quebecas a province that was as big a threat to Canada asGermany was to the world.

Cases of election fraud soared during the sub-sequent election campaign. A soldier suspected ofintending to vote Liberal was threatened with beingsent immediately to the front.Telegrams and letters


Women and the Vote, 1867–19001867 British North America Act entrenches women’s exclusion from the vote.1873 Female property owners in British Columbia are first “Canadian” women to

gain right to vote in municipal elections.1876 First women’s suffrage group set up in Toronto under the guise of a literary

society.1885 Sir John A. Macdonald introduces, then withdraws, an elections act amendment

giving women the vote.1894 Women’s Enfranchisement Association of New Brunswick formed.

Manitoba Equal Suffrage Club founded.House of Commons votes down a petition for women’s suffrage presented bythe Women’s Christian Temperance Union.

1900 By this date, most women property owners have the vote in municipal elections.


from the federal cabinet even specified the numberof floaters to be entered on the electoral lists toassure election of a given candidate in a given riding.An officer who feared investigation of the irregu-larities was told that anyone who failed to holdtheir tongue would be buried in France within sixmonths. Efforts to exercise “undue influence” on theelection resurfaced on a scale previously unheardof.The Sunday preceding the election, in three outof four Protestant churches across the country,pastors and ministers exhorted the people to lookon voting for the government in power as a sacredduty, failing which Canada would be disgraced.

The election was held on December 17, 1917.As specified in the Military Voters Act, the votes of civilian electors were counted before those ofmilitary voters.The military vote was more than90 percent for Borden.The Conservatives won atleast 14 additional seats by redistributing the mili-tary vote to ridings where opposition candidateshad a slight lead. Borden won the election. Butwas Canada less “disgraced”? The proposition isdoubtful at best.A few days before Canadians wentto the polls, Sir Wilfrid Laurier remarked to SirAllen Aylesworth, one of his oldest friends, “Theracial chasm which is now opening at our feet mayperhaps not be overcome for many generations.”

Women and the VoteThe Bluebirds who voted at the 1917 federal elec-tion may have been the first Canadian women todo so with the official sanction of the electoral lawbehind them, but they were not the first NorthAmerican women to vote.

At Confederation, all the original colonieshad statutory provisions excluding women from

voting,* and these were entrenched in section 41of the British North America Act:

Until the Parliament of Canada otherwiseprovides, all laws in force in the severalProvinces of the Union … shall … applyto elections of Members to serve in theHouse of Commons … [and] every maleBritish Subject, aged Twenty-one Years orupwards, being a householder, shall have a vote.

The colonies (except for Lower Canada)inherited England’s common law tradition, underwhich women had not exercised the franchise forcenturies; this was the result of convention, notstatute law. (Garner, 156) In the colonies, theconvention seems to have been less influential.

Only New Brunswick explicitly prohibitedvoting by women before 1800.There, the councilbanned women from voting in the colony’s inau-gural election, held in 1785, but the assembly laterfailed to include the ban in the colony’s first electorallaw, passed in 1791.

In Upper and Lower Canada, the ConstitutionalAct of 1791 was silent on the issue of womenvoting, extending the franchise to “persons” whoowned property of a certain value. Not being sub-ject to the common law, women in Lower Canadaturned out to vote at several locations. MadameRosalie Papineau, mother of Louis-Joseph, votedfor her son at the 1809 election, declaring herchoice “a good and faithful subject.”The womenaccompanying her also voted. By the 1820 electionthe practice had spread, and voting by womenwas recorded in Bedford County and Trois-Rivières,where a local citizen wrote later that two members

*Only Upper Canada never usedstatute law to close the franchise to women. But after the union ofLower and Upper Canada, theProvince of Canada disenfranchisedwomen in 1849.


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The Suffragette MovementNellie McClung was a women’srights activist who helped foundthe Manitoba Political EqualityLeague in 1912 and led themovement to enfranchise Canadianwomen. In 1916, Manitoba womenwere the first to gain the right tovote in provincial elections. Womengained the right to vote in 1918at the federal level.


had been elected by the “men and women ofTrois-Rivières, for here women vote just as mendo, without discrimination.” In Trois-Rivières, oneman was even disenfranchised because he hadplaced his property in his wife’s name. On electionday,“the unhappy man appeared at the pollingplace, only to find himself doubly humiliated bybeing refused the franchise and then sent to gethis wife to the polls because she was the qualifiedvoter in that family.” (Cleverdon, 215)

In Upper Canada, the common law traditionseems to have prevailed, since we have no writtenaccounts of women voting or records of election-related complaints involving voting by women.

Two recorded incidents in Nova Scotia makeit clear that women voted there.The first involveda disputed election in Amherst Township and thesecond an 1840 election in Annapolis County,where the Tories made great efforts to use women’svotes to save the riding from a Reform landslideand the Reformers countered by transporting theirown female supporters to the polls.The Tory effortwas in vain.The Reform women did not even haveto vote – they turned out at the polls in such largenumbers that the Tory women returned homewithout voting. (Garner, 156)

The 1840 Act of Union, uniting Upper andLower Canada in the Province of Canada, con-tained no prohibition on voting by women, andneither colony had a law against it. At least sevenwomen voted in the 1844 election in Canada West –the first recorded occurrence of a violation of thecommon law practice.This came to light as a resultof a protest by the defeated Reform candidate thatseven women had voted for his Tory opponent.Whenthey returned to power in 1849, the Reformersused the occasion of a general consolidation of


A Woman Votes in Lower Canada, 1827A handwritten record of names, qualifications, challenges and votes for the election of July 25, 1827, showsthat Agnes Wilson’s vote (left-hand column, fourth name from the bottom) was not challenged. Women inLower Canada were not bound by the common law convention barring women from the polls.


electoral laws to insert a clause excluding womenfrom the vote.

The female franchise had already begun to contractin 1834, when Lower Canada’s legislative assembly

attached a clause restricting voting by women toan act dealing with controverted elections.*Thepretext was that polling stations had become toodangerous for women. (Violence during the 1832election had resulted in three deaths.) The 1830salso saw the rise of ultramontanism, a conservativeclergy-led movement that was to affect many aspectsof Quebec society.The Imperial Reform Act of 1832,which restricted the franchise in the UnitedKingdom to men, may also have been influential.

Another force was at work as well: culturalpolitics. Events in Bedford County demonstratedthat restriction of the franchise may have beenless the result of hostility to women voting thanof language and cultural tensions. In Bedford, thedefeated candidate complained to the assemblythat his opponent had been elected in part by thevotes of 22 married women – in other words,husbands and wives had exercised the right tovote on the basis of the same pieces of property.

The assembly responded by resolving that thewomen’s votes had been illegal, but the resolutionseems to have been prompted by the fact that thewomen’s votes had elected an English-speakingcandidate at the expense of the French-speakingincumbent.This impression is reinforced by anincident eight years later, when petitioners con-tested the election of Andrew Stuart after anEnglish-speaking returning officer in Québecrefused to accept one woman’s vote for Stuart’sFrench-speaking opponent. (Garner, 157)

Whatever the source of the restriction, andregardless of the fact that the 1834 law was laterstruck down, increasing social conservatism seems tohave done its work, and women in Lower Canadaappear to have ceased voting in significant numbers.(Hamel, 227)


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*The law was later overturned bycolonial authorities in London forreasons unrelated to women’s right to vote.

Women and the Vote, 1912–19211912 Manitoba Political Equality League founded in Winnipeg.

Montreal Suffrage Association formed.1914 Flora Macdonald Denison, suffragette journalist and president of the Canadian

Suffrage Association, publishes War and Women.1915 Edmonton, February. Nellie McClung, heading one of the largest delegations

to the Alberta legislature ever assembled, presents a petition demandingthe vote for women.Winnipeg, December. Suffragists present a 45,000-name petition to PremierTobias C. Norris.

1916 January. Manitoba women are the first in Canada to win the right to vote inprovincial elections.March. Saskatchewan women get the vote.April. The suffrage movement triumphs in Alberta.

1917 February. Ontario women get the vote but still cannot sit in the legislature.April. British Columbia women get the vote.Serving members of the armed forces (including women) get the federalfranchise through Military Voters Act.Female relatives of soldiers at the front get the vote through War-time Elections Act.

1918 May 24. Royal assent given to bill giving women the right to vote in federalelections. Eligibility: age 21 or older, not alien-born and meet propertyrequirements in provinces where they exist.

1919 Electoral law amended – women can now stand for federal office.1920 Federal electoral law amended; changes include universal female (and

male) suffrage regardless of provincial law.1921 First federal election at which women vote under universal franchise.


Between that time and Confederation, thefemale franchise was eroded further.Women weredisenfranchised by law in Prince Edward Island in1836, in New Brunswick in 1843 and in NovaScotia in 1851.Two years earlier, in 1849, theReform government of the Province of Canadahad gained legislative approval for a law prohibitingwomen from voting: “May it be proclaimed anddecreed that no woman shall have the right to voteat any election, be it for a county or riding, or forany of the aforesaid towns and cities.”This endedyears of confusion about the validity of the femalefranchise in the Canadas.

This was the situation at Confederation: womenof property in the various colonies had enjoyed the

franchise (or at least had not faced legal restrictions),then lost it over a period of years and for a varietyof reasons.With provincial law governing the fed-eral franchise at Confederation, this exclusion wasentrenched in the new dominion’s constitution.

Within a decade after Confederation, however,a women’s suffrage movement had begun in almostall the former colonies.The exception was Quebec,where extreme conservatism still held sway insocial, political and religious matters. Elsewhere inCanada, the push for women’s suffrage had takenhold by the 1870s.The first suffrage societies wereestablished by women seeking social, economic andpolitical equality with men. Many were profes-sionals, often pioneers in fields such as medicine,who had encountered discrimination first-hand.(Bacchi, 433) This decade saw the founding of the Toronto Women’s Literary Club by Dr. EmilyStowe, Canada’s first female doctor, in 1876.Theclub was in fact a screen for suffrage activity andthus was the country’s first suffragist organization,changing its name in 1883 to the Toronto Women’sSuffrage Association.

But soon the suffrage movement took on a dif-ferent cast, attracting men and women of Protestant,Anglo-Saxon origins, most of whom belonged tothe educated urban middle class – professionals,


[Women’s suffrage] is a matter of evolution and evolution isonly a working out of God’s laws. For this reason we mustnot attempt to hurry it on.

– James P. WhitneyThe Daily Mail and Empire

March 21, 1911

Table 2.4Women’s Democratic Rights

Right to Right to Be Vote a Candidate

British Columbia 1917 1917

Alberta 1916 1916

Saskatchewan 1916 1916

Manitoba 1916 1916

Ontario 1917 1919

Quebec 1940 1940

New Brunswick 1919 1934

Prince Edward Island 1922 1922

Nova Scotia 1918 1918

Newfoundland 1925 1925

Canada 1918 1919


clergymen, a few reform-minded businessmen andtheir wives. (Bacchi, 433) These suffragists had abroad social reform agenda, one that embraced work-place safety, public health, child labour, prohibitionof the production and sale of alcohol, prostitution,the “Canadianization” of immigrants as well as votesfor women.The Women’s Christian TemperanceUnion (WCTU), for example, became a force inthe suffrage movement, convinced that if womenhad the vote, temperance would be assured.*

Similarly, social reformers intent on combattingthe evils of industrialization and the urbanizationthat accompanied it – abuse of alcohol, prostitution,venereal disease, neglect of children – joined thesuffrage movement with the goal of bolsteringthe social order with what might now be called

“family values.” Giving women the vote woulddouble the family’s representation and extendmaternal influence into the political sphere.

In Quebec, the picture was different. As thesuffrage movement elsewhere in Canada was takingits first steps, Quebec moved to prohibit womenvoting in municipal elections and amend theCivil Code to make women legally “incapable” –of owning property, of inheriting an estate andcertainly of voting.Advocates of women’s rights inthat province therefore focused more on gaininglegal reforms and equality of opportunity in edu-cation than on the vote. It was not until the 1930sthat the focus shifted to women’s suffrage. Alsoapparent was the influence of conservative clergyand nationalists who objected to the Anglo-Saxonorigins of the suffrage movement.

In the 1880s, debate about women’s suffragebecame linked with provincial autonomy issues.Until 1885, under the terms of the British NorthAmerica Act, the provinces determined who waseligible to vote in federal elections. Prime MinisterJohn A. Macdonald changed that with the ElectoralFranchise Act of 1885, whose passage he consideredthe greatest triumph of his life. (Stewart, 3) Inconsolidating control of the franchise at the federallevel, Macdonald even included a clause givingpropertied widows and single women the vote,though he later withdrew it: apparently it had beena sacrificial lamb never intended to remain in thefinal version of the law. Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberalgovernment returned the federal franchise toprovincial control with a new electoral law in1898.The focus of suffragist activity therefore

Sisters in the Struggle, 1916British suffragette EmmelinePankhurst was photographed in1916 at the Edmonton home ofNellie McClung. Mrs. McClung is inthe centre, wearing a striped dress;Mrs. Pankhurst is to her left. Alsoin the group was Emily Murphy(author, suffragist and later ajudge), one of the five complainantsin the 1929 “Persons Case,” inwhich the British Privy Councildetermined once and for all thatCanadian women were indeed“persons” and therefore eligiblefor appointment to the Senate.


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*The first Canadian section of the WCTU was founded by Laetitia Youmans atPicton, Ontario, in 1874.


shifted to provincial governments and legislatures,where it remained for the next two decades.

By the end of the nineteenth century, then, thewomen’s suffrage movement was well underway,with organizations active in the Western provinces,Ontario and the Maritimes.The municipal franchisewas extended gradually; by 1900, most womenproperty owners across the country could vote inmunicipal elections.

In addition, bills to give women the vote hadbeen introduced in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia,Ontario and British Columbia, though none wassuccessful. Between 1885 and 1893, and againbetween 1905 and 1916, a bill introduced annuallyin the Ontario legislature to give women the voteprovoked laughter and derision. Bills were alsointroduced in the New Brunswick legislature in1886, 1894, 1895, 1897, 1899 and 1909; all weredefeated (some by only a narrow margin) or allowedto die on the Order Paper.Women presentingpetitions at the time the 1909 bill was introducedwere greeted by insults, whistles and jeers fromMLAs in the corridors, who asked the sergeant-at-arms to ring the division bells until the womenleft the building.

To counter these attitudes, Canada’s suffragistsrelied on petitions to provincial governments –sometimes containing as many as 100,000 names;on lecture tours and speaking engagements; onmeetings with politicians; and on public meetingsand events, such as mock parliaments (see box right).The confrontational tactics adopted by Britishand American campaigners for women’s suffragehad no counterpart in Canada.

The suffragists were well organized, willing tobuck social convention and skilful at enlisting thehelp of influential organizations, particularly in

the West, where they gained the support of theUnited Farmers’ Association of Alberta and theGrain Growers Association. As has been the casewith other social issues in Canada, the Westernprovinces led the way in enfranchising women.Manitoba was the first, extending the provincialfranchise to women in January 1916. Saskatchewanand Alberta followed suit in March and Aprilrespectively.The next year, 1917, Ontario womengot the vote in February and British Columbiawomen in April. Also that year, Louise McKinneyof Alberta, a temperance and women’s rightsadvocate, became the first woman elected to aCanadian legislature.

This broadening of the provincial franchise,coupled with extension of the franchise to prop-ertied women in municipal elections, createdpressure for change at the federal level. But theimmediate impetus was political, and women’sfirst access to the federal franchise was almostaccidental. On the eve of the 1917 general election,the government of Sir Robert Borden faced acomplicated situation: women in all provincesfrom British Columbia to Ontario had the voteby virtue of provincial electoral law; women livingeast of the Ontario/Quebec border did not.Withoutsome standardization of the franchise, ridings inOntario and the West would have twice as manyelectors as those in Quebec and the Maritimes.

The temporary solution that presented itselfhad less to do with women’s rights than with thepressing political issue facing Borden’s govern-ment: conscription. As described earlier in thischapter, Parliament extended the franchise throughtwo new laws in a transparent effort to expandthe pro-conscription ranks.The Military Voters Act,intended to enfranchise soldiers under the age of 21,

Votes for Men!Women’s suffragegroups often stagedpublic events to advo-cate their cause. Oneevent, sponsored bythe Manitoba PoliticalEquality League inWinnipeg in January1914, featured a playwith women in therole of legislators listening to a group of men petitioning for the vote. NellieMcClung, in the roleof provincial premier,rejected the idea,declaring that “Manis made for somethinghigher and better thanvoting. Men were madeto support families.What is a home with-out a bank account!”McClung, who had hadmany run-ins withPremier RodmondRoblin on the women’ssuffrage issue, mim-icked him so well thatthe audience oftenroared with laughter.

Chronicle of Canada,557



inadvertently benefited women as well, so thatthe Bluebirds – military nurses serving in the war effort – became the first Canadian women to exercise the right to vote in a federal election.

The second law, the War-time Elections Act,gave the vote to close female relatives of peopleserving in the armed forces (swelling the electorallists by some 500,000 names), but it also effectivelywithdrew the vote from women who would other-wise have had it by virtue of provincial law butdid not have a relative in the armed forces.Thissituation would not be tolerated for long.

The following year, Borden’s re-elected govern-ment moved to correct the situation, introducinga bill to provide for universal female suffrage onMarch 21, 1918.Again, the bill was not universallywelcomed. Declared MP Jean-Joseph Denis, “I saythat the Holy Scripture, theology, ancient philosophy,Christian philosophy, history, anatomy, physiology,political economy, and feminine psychology allseem to indicate that the place of women in thisworld is not amid the strife of the political arena,but in her home.” (Debates April 11, 1918; 643)Facing strong opposition, Borden compromised by

Bluebirds at the Ballot Box, 1917Given the time difference betweenEurope and Canada, these Canadian military nurses (the“Bluebirds”), photographed at a polling station set up at a Canadian field hospital in France in December 1917, probably voted before women inCanada. If so, they were amongthe first Canadian women to vote in a dominion election.


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stipulating in the bill that women electors wouldhave to meet the same requirements as men – forexample, property requirements where they existed.The compromise worked, and the Act to confer theElectoral Franchise upon Women received royal assenton May 24, 1918. A 1919 law gave women theright to be candidates in federal elections.

Women’s suffrage was “in the tide,” as NellieMcClung told Alberta legislators in 1915.The “freshwind” of change felt by McClung in Alberta hadnow swept across the land. Nova Scotia womengained the provincial franchise in 1918.

Legislation in 1920 provided universal accessto the vote without reference to property owner-ship or other exclusionary requirements – age andcitizenship remained the only criteria. Provincialcontrol of the federal franchise was now a thingof the past.The general election of 1921 was thefirst open to all Canadians, men and women, overthe age of 21. Agnes Macphail, the first femalemember of Parliament, won a seat at that election.



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