Henrietta Edwards

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Statue of Edwards

Henrietta Edwards (December 18, 1849 – November 10, 1931) was a Canadian women’s rights activist and reformer.

She was born Henrietta Louise Muir in Montreal. As a young woman, she espoused various feminist causes, forming the Working Girls' Association in 1875 to provide vocational training for women and editing the journal, Women's Work in Canada.

In 1893, with Lady Aberdeen, she founded the National Council of Women and the Victorian Order of Nurses.

Edwards was one of The Famous Five (also called The Valiant Five), who established that women were, indeed, persons and therefore entitled to sit in the Senate of Canada. During this period women had earned the right to vote and gender equality issues were a hot political topic. The Famous Five had begun to bring attention to their cause of putting a woman in the Senate. At the time the legal definition of "qualified persons" under the British North America Act (BNA Act 1867) was thought by the Canadian Government not to include women.

In 1928, the Minister of Justice submitted a reference question to the Supreme Court of Canada asking if "the word "Persons" in section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867 include female persons?"

The five Justices who heard the case held that the meaning of "qualified persons" did not include women. The majority judgment was written by Francis Alexander Anglin, with Lamont and Smith J. concurring. Mignault J. and Duff J. wrote separate concurring opinions. A common misinterpretation of the case is that the Supreme Court held that women are not persons. For example, at the Canadian Status of Women, Government of Canada, website it says that: "After five weeks of debate and argument the Supreme Court of Canada decided that the word "person" did not include women." On the contrary. The Supreme Court of Canada noted explicitly that "[t]here can be no doubt that the word "persons" when standing alone prima facie includes women."

The Court interpreted the definition of 'qualified person' as intended by the drafters of the BNA Act 1867, despite acknowledging that the role of women in society had changed since that date. The Court held that the common law incapacity of women to exercise public functions excluded women from the class of "qualified persons" under s. 23 of the B.N.A. Act.

In 1867 women could not sit in Parliament and thus if there were to be an exception to the practice from that period it would have to be explicitly legislated.

Viscount Sankey, writing for the committee, found that the meaning of "qualified persons" could be read broadly to include women, reversing the decision of the Supreme Court. The landmark ruling was handed down on October 29, 1929.

To arrive that his conclusion, Sankey proposed an entirely new approach to constitutional interpretation that has since become one of the core principles of constitutional law in Canada.

The British North America Act planted in Canada a living tree capable of growth and expansion within its natural limits. The object of the Act was to grant a Constitution to Canada. Like all written constitutions it has been subject to development through usage and convention.

Their Lordships do not conceive it to be the duty of this Board -- it is certainly not their desire -- to cut down the provisions of the Act by a narrow and technical construction, but rather to give it a large and liberal interpretation so that the Dominion to a great extent, but within certain fixed limits, may be mistress in her own house, as the provinces to a great extent, but within certain fixed limits, are mistresses in theirs.

From this the approach became known as the living tree doctrine which requires "large and liberal" interpretation.

In applying this approach to the current case Sankey held that the "exclusion of women from all public offices is a relic of days more barbarous than ours. And to those who would ask why the word "person" should include females, the obvious answer is, why should it not?"

Although the ruling was to be of crucial importance for Canadian women in the longterm, it did not result in Emily Murphy, of the Famous Five, achieving her dream of being appointed to the Senate. However, it was only a year later, on February 15, 1930, that the first woman, Cairine Reay Wilson, was appointed to the Senate.