when did the suffrage movement began in canada
Women's suffrage in Canada The cause of women's suffrage began in 1867, Canadian Confederation year, when Dr. Emily Stowe came to Toronto to practise medicine.[citation needed] She was the first, and for many years the sole woman physician in Canada. Stowe, vitally interested in all matters relating to women, at once came before the public as a lecturer upon topics then somewhat new, “Woman's Sphere” and “Women in the Professions,” being her subjects. She lectured not only in Toronto, but, under the auspices of various Mechanics' Institutes, in Ottawa, Whitby, and Bradford. After attending a meeting of the American Society for the Advancement of Women, in Cleveland in 1877, and meeting many women of the United States, Stowe, on returning home, felt that the time had arrived for some similar union among Canadian women. Talking it over with her friend, Helen Archibald, they decided that it would not be politic to attempt at once a suffrage association but, in November 1877, organized what was known as "The Toronto Woman's Literary Club".[3]
Suffragette Women in Britain over the age of 30, meeting certain property qualifications, were given the right to vote in 1918, and in 1928 suffrage was extended to all women over the age of 21.[3] Opinion amongst historians today is divided as to whether the militant tactics of the suffragettes helped or hindered their cause.