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The Valiant Five or The Famous Five were five Canadian women who, in 1927 asked the Supreme Court of Canada to answer the question, "Are women persons?" The case came to be known as the Persons Case.
The women, all of whom were from Alberta, were:
Specifically the question was whether Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, included the possibility of women becoming senators: "The Governor General shall... summon qualified Persons to the Senate; and ... every Person so summoned shall become and be a Member of the Senate and a Senator."
Only men had been appointed to the Senate thus far. For years, pressure had grown for women to be appointed to the Senate. Among other reasons, until 1970 the Senate approved divorces.
In Edwards v. Canada (Attorney General) [1928] S.C.R. 276, The Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously that the word person did not include women. The stated grounds included:
- the framers of the Act, in 1867, could not have had it in mind to permit women senators, since women did not participate in politics at that time;
- the act exclusively used the word "he" to refer to senators.
The five women were appalled by the decision. They refused to give up and appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London--effectively Canada's highest court at that time. Canadian women were delighted when, on October 18, 1929, the committee ruled that Canadian women were indeed persons and were competent to serve in the Senate. In their decision (Edwards v. Canada (Attorney General) [1930] A.C. 124 (P.C.)), the Privy Councilors called the exclusion of women from public office "a relic of days more barbarous than ours."
Four months later, Cairine Wilson became the first woman to sit in the Senate.
Along with Thérèse Casgrain, the Five have been commemorated on Canada's newest fifty-dollar bill.
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