December 2015 will mark the forty-fifth anniversary of the publication of the findings of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada (RCSW). The RCSW was established in 1967 by Liberal prime minister Lester B. Pearson in response to pressure being exerted on the government by the women’s movement.

The commissioners’ mandate was to “to inquire into and report upon the status of women in Canada, and to recommend what steps might be taken by the federal government to ensure for women equal opportunities with men in all aspects of Canadian society.”[1] Florence Bird was chosen to lead the enquiry, the first time in history a woman had been appointed to chair a royal commission.

Many in Canada were opposed to the establishment of the commission, especially male politicians and journalists. Several editorial cartoonists mocked the commissioners, feminists, and women who were testifying during hearings. And in the House of Commons, where women were not generally considered to be voting constituents, Conservative member Terry Nugent bluntly called the idea of an inquiry “utter balderdash.” Nugent commented during the debate that the best approach to handling women was to simply agree with them when they were right and agree with them when they were wrong.[2]

The RCSW held a series of public hearings between April and October of 1968 in numerous locations across the country. They received a total of 468 briefs and some 1,000 letters of opinion from individuals and organizations in addition to submissions from 890 witnesses. In their final report released in December 1970, the commissioners made 167 recommendations that clearly documented women’s concerns over inequality between genders in Canadian society.[3]

Their concerns were justified. At the time in Canada, there was just one female member of parliament sitting in the midst of 263 men. There were four female senators (out of 102) sitting in the upper chamber, and only 14 of 889 judges in Canada were women.[4] The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada’s federal police force, did not allow women in its ranks. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms was still twelve years away from development. Sexual harassment case law was still ten years away and it was not until 1983 that the Canadian Human Rights Act included sexual harassment as a discriminatory practice.

The Commission’s final report was not perfect. Visible minorities and immigrant women were not recognized, nor were women with disabilities. A discussion on sexual orientation and gay rights was also missing, and the issue of violence against women was not addressed.

Nevertheless, the recommendations made by the commissioners included wider access to birth control, improved access to higher education, the inclusion of women in the RCMP, changes to the Indian Act, employment equity, access to trades in the Canadian Armed Forces, paid maternity leave, family law, and pensions. All were identified as fundamental rights for women in Canada. Most of the recommendations have since been enacted, a claim few royal commissions before or since can make.

The commission’s findings represented a milestone for women’s rights in Canada. Today, Canadian women can look to the RCSW as an important touchstone in the ongoing fight for equality. We can thank the women from all walks of Canadian life who participated in the hearings and made submissions, as well as the commissioners, for their work in helping to establish the rights we all enjoy today.

A number of women were instrumental in achieving the gains made by activists in the women’s movement during the 1960s and 70s. Their activism on behalf of women’s rights laid the groundwork for many of the social, economic, and political rights that Canadian women enjoy today.

Judy LaMarsh was one of these women. LaMarsh served as a member of the Canadian Women’s Army Corps from 1943-1946, obtaining the rank of sergeant. She trained as a lawyer following the war, entering politics in 1960 and winning her first seat in 1963 as a member of Parliament for the riding of Niagara Falls, Ontario. LaMarsh held a number of portfolios under the leadership of Liberal prime minister Lester B. Pearson, her most important being Secretary of State from 1965-68. She was only the second woman in Canadian history to hold a Cabinet post.

Judy LaMarsh (1924-1980)

LaMarsh proved to be an important ally within the government for the Canadian women’s movement. She had been quietly encouraging Pearson to establish a Royal Commission on the Status of Women since taking office. In her memoirs, LaMarsh claimed that Pearson had been prepared to accept her advice in 1965 until she publicly mentioned the need for a Royal Commission at a national women’s meeting. It was a comment that was vehemently attacked in the press by a number of male journalists. According to LaMarsh, “Pearson backed off as if stung with a nettle.”[1]

LaMarsh repeatedly raised the issue with him afterwards, but Pearson remained obdurate. It was not until 1967 that a door opened for LaMarsh to revisit the issue with the prime minister. On 5 January, journalist Barry Craig of the Toronto Globe and Mail published a threat made during an interview by Laura Sabia of the Committee for the Equality of Women in Canada (CEWC). Sabia impulsively told Craig that three million women were prepared to march on Parliament Hill to demand a Royal Commission if the government failed to meet its demands. LaMarsh later recalled that Pearson was “sufficiently frightened” by the prospect and wanted to re-open talks with the CEWC.[2]

Three days after Sabia’s threat was published, LaMarsh strategically delivered a public response, via the media, meant to appease the prime minister and members of the Cabinet. She warned the CEWC about its strident tone, cautioning that the “Prime Minister and the Cabinet are men as other men and if you have harpies harping at them you will just get their backs up and they won’t do anything. I think the women have made their point and they should just wait a few weeks and see what happens.”[3] By appearing to offer a more reasoned approach to the issue by publicly castigating the “harpies,” LaMarsh was pandering to male concepts of women and their proper role in society.

The tactic worked because it allowed Pearson to appear to be making an informed, rather than a reactive, decision. Some feminists later noted that LaMarsh’s pressure tactics inside the Cabinet were more important in gaining a Royal Commission than Sabia’s threatened march on Parliament Hill.[4] The approach that was the most influential has been a question of debate for decades. The answer is probably that both tactics were successful because on 16 February 1967, a Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada was created.

2015: The Fortieth Anniversary of the United Nations’

International Women’s Year, 1975

[1] Judy LaMarsh, Memoirs of a Bird in a Gilded Cage (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1968), 301. [2] Morris, “‘Determination and Thoroughness’,” 15. [3] Rudy Platiel, “Stop harping about a royal commission, Judy LaMarsh warns women’s group,” The Globe and Mail, 09 January 1967, 13. [4] Cerise Morris, “‘Determination and Thoroughness’: The Movement for a Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada,” Atlantis 5:2 (Spring 1980): 16.

2015: The Fortieth Anniversary of the United Nations’

International Women’s Year, 1975

As strange as it may seem to us in the twenty-first century, women’s rights were not always equated with human rights in Canada. In the 1940s, a number of Canadian provinces began to develop human rights legislation, particularly in an effort to protect racial minorities against discrimination. Saskatchewan was the first, enacting a statutory Bill of Rights in 1947.

Source: nextyearcountrynews.blogspot.com

The issue of fair wages for women in the workplace was just beginning to be addressed, too. Ontario was the first to pass the Female Employees Fair Remuneration Act in 1951, with most other provinces following suit over the next ten years.[1] In 1960, the federal government developed a Bill of Rights which recognized the rights of Canadians to freedom of speech, religion, assembly, association, and due process.[2] None of these pieces of legislation, however, made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sex.

When Canada became a member of the United Nation’s (UN) Status of Women Commission in 1958, some women’s groups were quick to point out that the federal government violated its commitment by failing to implement employment equity policies in its own institutions. Women were required to resign from their civil service jobs as soon as they married or became pregnant. Several government agencies such as the RCMP and the armed forces resisted employing women, Aboriginal people, and ethnic and cultural minorities with impunity.

March on International Women’s Day, 1970s

Activists pushed the federal government to honour the agreements it had ratified but not yet acted upon, with little success.

In 1968, the UN designated the year as the International Year for Human Rights. The Canadian government planned a number of events to celebrate. A conference was being organized, but not one woman was appointed to the planning committee. It was an ironic development that was not lost on activists who feared that any human rights

Abortion Caravan protestors, 1970 – Source: socialist.ca

commission investigating the status of women in Canada would be comprised solely of men. As the planning for the humans rights conference demonstrated, their fears were justified and activists continued to lobby the government to establish a royal commission instead. The Canadian government hesitated on the grounds that Québec resisted federal impingement on the jurisdiction of the provinces. Judy LaMarsh, the only woman on the federal cabinet in 1968, quipped that it seemed “odd to think that in some men’s minds women belong predominantly to the provinces.”[3]

It was only after activists threatened to march three million women to protest on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario if the government continued to refuse to establish a royal commission that the prime minister finally relented.

On 16 February 1967, Order-in-Council PC 1967-312 was approved by the Governor General and a Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada was created. The commissioners were mandated to “inquire into and report upon the status of women in Canada, and to recommend what steps might be taken by the federal government to ensure for women equal opportunities with men in all aspects of Canadian society.”[4]

It was a turning point for women’s rights in this country. The commission’s hearings and its final report (published in 1970) received a considerable amount of media coverage which drew attention, not all of it positive, to the issue of women’s inequality in Canada.

A number of Canadian women were instrumental in advancing the rights of women throughout the decade. Their stories will be featured in upcoming blogs in celebration of the United Nation’s fortieth anniversary of International Women’s Year (1975).