It may also be a reflection of how young men feel they are the forgotten generation.
By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on October 21, 2024.
OTTAWA—It has been 95 years, on Oct. 18, since Canadian women were given the right to vote.
In recognition of that right, the Ottawa chapter of the Famous Five Foundation will celebrate a Pink Tea event at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Oct. 27.
At the ceremony, the foundation will unveil this year’s recipients of the Famous 5 award for their contribution to the fight for equality.
Dozens of other Famous 5 chapters across the country hosted similar events to commemorate Oct. 18, 1929.
That day, a landmark decision by the Privy Council of Great Britain recognized women as persons before the law, thus conferring upon them the right to vote.
The appeal to the British Privy Council followed an unsuccessful campaign in 1928 at the Canadian Senate for women’s right to vote. The effort was led by five Alberta suffragettes who became known as the Famous Five. Their names are Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney, Irene Parlby, and Henrietta Moore Edwards.
The Famous Five is currently the most visited grouping of statues within the Parliamentary Precinct on Wellington Street in Ottawa. The Famous Five Foundation was formed to secure national recognition for those women, and then to fight for recognition of modern-day suffragettes.
At next Sunday’s Pink Tea, five women will be honoured for fighting for Indigenous rights, the rights of Afghan women and others involved in the battle for modern day racial and gender equality, and against misogyny.
The Famous 5 Ottawa will recognize the following award recipients: Mariam Abdel-Akher, Cindy Blackstock, Najia Haneefi, Marie-Noëlle Lanthier, and Christine Romulus for special recognition, each in their own area of expertise.
“These extraordinary women continue to doggedly push the envelope in the face of obstacles and challenges just as the original Famous Five had to do,” said Beatrice Raffoul, chair of Famous 5 Ottawa.
The modern Famous 5 know that much work still has to be done when women in some parts of the world are not even allowed to go to school, and Indigenous women are recovering from the trauma of residential school cultural annihilation.
Canadians think that the fight for equality is over, but one only has to look at the current political situation to understand that we still have much work ahead.
In the upcoming American presidential election, according to an Environics Institute poll published by The Globe and Mail last week, the majority of Canadians prefer the Democratic nominee Kamala Harris over Republican Donald Trump.
But the younger a man is, the more likely he is to support Trump.
Notwithstanding his multiple criminal convictions and Trump’s vehement refusal to accept the 2020 election loss, the former president’s level of support has actually increased since the last election, Environics revealed.
At that time, Trump had the support of 15 per cent of Canadian respondents, and that figure has now increased to 21 per cent. Trump’s greatest level of support comes from young men, and in that cohort, young Conservatives are most likely to support the convicted felon. Conservatives were more likely to support Trump than Harris, with 44 per cent voicing support—an increase of 11 per cent from four years ago.
The vote split in other parties has remained relatively stagnant, with 89 per cent of Bloc Québécois supporters, 85 per cent of Liberals, and 82 per cent of New Democrats preferring Harris over Trump.
The rise in Conservative support for Trump makes one wonder whether the current Democratic candidate’s gender is at play.
Former president Barack Obama hit the campaign trail last week with exactly that message.
He specifically called out Black men for refusing to support Harris simply because she is a woman.
Obama told his audience that while they claimed other reasons for not supporting her, their refusal is based on misogyny because they will not vote for a woman.
Harris is currently working hard to try to bridge that gender divide, reaching out on podcasts and other non-traditional media platforms hosted by men for men.
But, just like in Canada, the gender gap in voting is quite stark in the United States.
Older people and women are supporting Harris, while the younger male generation has been more supportive of Trump.
That the level of misogyny is highest in young voters is troubling. It may also be a reflection of how young men feel they are the forgotten generation.
Some 95 years after Canadian women got the right to vote, we still have a long way to go.
Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.
