The Famous 5 were disappointed but not defeated. There was one higher authority to which they could appeal: the Privy Council of England. After much deliberation, the Privy Council reversed the decision of the Supreme Court on 18 October 1929, concluding that “the word ‘persons’ in sec. 24 does include women, and that women are eligible to be summoned to and become members of the Senate of Canada.”
Lord Sankey, who delivered the judgement on behalf of the Privy Council, also remarked that the “exclusion of women from all public offices is a relic of days more barbarous than ours […] and to those who ask why the word [persons] should include females, the obvious answer is why should it not.”
Furthermore, he explained,
their Lordships do not think it right to apply rigidly to Canada of to-day the decisions and the reasonings therefor which commended themselves […] to those who had to apply the law in different circumstances, in different centuries, to countries in different stages of development.
In 1867, Canadian women were unable by law to hold political office. However, the situation in 1929 was very different, as most women were able to vote and become candidates in all federal and provincial elections (there were two exceptions: in Québec, women did not have the vote; in New Brunswick, women could vote but could not hold political office). The Privy Council judgment was therefore consistent with the legislative changes of the 1910s and 1920s concerning women’s suffrage.
Significance
On 15 February 1930, Cairine Wilson was sworn in as Canada’s first female senator. The implications of the Persons Case, and Wilson’s appointment, were far-reaching. First, the Privy Council decision meant that women had been legally recognized as “persons.” This meant that women could no longer be denied rights based on narrow interpretations of the law. Second, women could now continue to work for greater rights and opportunities through the Senate as well as the House of Commons. The Persons Case was a significant moment in the history of women’s rights, even though the struggle for equality continues today.
The Governor General’s Awards in Commemoration of the Persons Case were founded in 1979 to honour, annually, five individuals who advanced the equality of women and girls in Canada. In 1999, the Women Are Persons! monument was unveiled at the Olympic Plaza in Calgary, Alberta; a similar monument was installed on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, the following year. Women Are Persons! was also featured on the $50 banknote issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2004.
Tabitha MarshallAn earlier version of this entry was published by The Canadian Encyclopedia .