Emily Murphy and the Person's Case
"Every successful team must have a captain or a leader. In the case of Alberta's Famous Five for the rights of women, as 'persons', to sit in the Canadian Senate, the distinction of leadership belonged to Mrs. Emily Murphy". Emily Murphy strongly believed that women should take an equal place with men, and was dismayed by the lack of rights that women had for their properties and belongings, so she began to debate about the issues surrounding women's rights. Emily was the first women brave enough to visit the legislature with the numerous amount of facts that she found to support her case on equality for women. She soon became National President of the Canadian Women's Press Club. The Canadian Women's Press Club was an organization in which journalists and other supporters devoted their time to finding out why women were referred to as the 'weaker sex'. When two young women were dismissed from a public court hearing because the trial was unfit to be heard by two ladies, they turned to Emily Murphy for advice on what to do. Mrs. Murphy then suggested the idea of a women's court, in which a lady judge could try accused women, as some cases may be too vulgar or embarrassing to speak about in front of the men. The idea was presented to Honourable C.W. Cross, and he agreed to the notion. This would make Judge Emily Murphy the first female to be appointed to the senate, although she was not considered a person. Although many people were against the idea of a women in the court rooms, Mrs. Murphy kept her head high and tried the cases as fairly as she could. On Emily's first day in court a lawyer had challenged her right to be a judge on the grounds that a woman is not a person; this on-again off-again talk about whether women were person's continued on much too long for Mrs. Murphy's liking.
Mrs. Murphy took action, and began to look into section 24 of the British North American Act and drew attention of it to the Supreme Court of Canada. In order to proceed, there would need to be five names on the petition that would be presented to the court; Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Irene Parlby, Louise McKinney, and Henrietta Muir Edwards all stepped forward to sign the petition. They are now known as the Famous Five. The case was heard on March 14th, 1928, in which the five women requested that the Honourable Newton Wesley Rowell, lawyer, present the case for them. He stated the question "Does the word 'Persons' in Section 24 of the British North American Act, 1867, include female persons?". The Supreme Court of Canada still declared that women were not persons. Although disappointed, this did not stop the Famous Five from trying, it only encouraged them to fight harder; they then took the case to the highest court appeal, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in England. Five long months after the case was presented, on October 18th, 1929, the law was passed to include women as persons. Canada rejoiced! Although the Famous Five were heavily involved in supporting the rights of women as persons on the senate, none of them were appointed to the senate. Cairine Wilson was Canada's first female senator, who was sworn in on the 15 of February 1930.
Canadian Heritage Minute- Emily Murphy
Women Are Persons!
In honour of their achievements, a statue has been erected in October 1999 in Olympic Park, Calgary, Alberta. An exact replica was also placed on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario just one year after the unveiling of the original. Barbara Paterson was chosen to depict a scene showing their perseverance and determination to create a better life for Canadian women. Mrs. Paterson spent two years working with bronze to depict a scene made up of five individual sculptures to show the successes of those Canadian women who fought for the right of women as persons on the senate. This statue scene is titled Women Are Persons!
The Famous Five statue is also located on the back of the Canadian $50 bills produced from 2001-2011.