Claresholm mayor pays tribute to McKinney, Famous 5

By Lawrence Gleason – Local Press Writer
“You’re a hard act to follow!”
That was the complimentary comment of Claresholm Mayor Chelsae Petrovic, delivering her speech after her fellow invited municipal leader, Okotoks Mayor Tanya Thorn, as the pair addressed the Oct. 19 Pink Tea at the Claresholm Public Library, marking the 93rd anniversary of the Person’s Case.
Okotoks Mayor Thorn was a tough act to follow, with a well-researched speech prepared of a dozen pages, every page riveting for the 38 people attending. She touched on the Persons Case, the cause of women being taken seriously in public service, and a key issue of today’s political landscape, the lack of dialogue between people with entrenched political differences.
Petrovic paid homage to the Famous 5, including Claresholm’s Louise McKinney, key to the Person’s Case in October 1929. McKinney died just two years later in 1931. A statue of McKinney was erected on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
“I am honoured to be here today to celebrate the great women who have come before me, the Famous 5. These women fought for us to be legally qualified as persons,” Petrovic said.
The Famous 5 included Louise McKinney, elected in 1917 to represent the Claresholm area in the Alberta legislature; Emily Murphy, the first female magistrate in Canada and in the entire British Empire; Nellie McClung, suffragette, author and delegate to the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations; Irene Parlby, elected MLA for Lacombe in 1921 and served in the cabinet, the second woman in the British Empire to hold a cabinet position, and who later was also a delegate to the League of Nations; and author Henrietta Muir Edwards, who wrote Legal Status of Women in Canada and Legal Status of Women in Alberta.
It was these five accomplished women who appealed the established constitutional interpretation of law at the time that women in Canada were not persons – a requirement to be appointed to the Senate. The quirk of law rested on the original wording of who could vote. That was males at least 21 years of age. Although women had the vote for a decade by 1928, the Famous 5 realized the barrier of women not being recognized as persons was a significant one and were determined to overturn this by appeal, and did. That decision was handed down on Oct. 18, 1929.
The wording of the decision by the British Privy Council included the sentence, “The exclusion of women from all public offices is a relic of days more barbarous than ours.”
Petrovic said, “Louise McKinney served Claresholm as our MLA and I am sure she would be proud to see how far society has come. But there is still more to do.”
Petrovic said discrimination against women continues.
“I would like to tell you that as a young, well-educated, successful woman that I do not meet resistance. But that is not the case. I feel if I was a typical mayor I would not have met the same resistance.”
Petrovic agreed with Thorn that women can harbour self doubt about running for elected office.
“I was approached over eight times to run for mayor,” Petrovic said. “It is now inspiring to see young girls want to be politicians. Young women are seeing people like myself and Tanya making positive changes in our communities. My daughter for example went from wanting to be a nurse like her mom and now wants to be Prime Minister of Canada. It’s so rewarding to speak to young people today in the schools. Girls are saying I’m going to be a politician one day. I am going to be mayor. I think that is rewarding, to be challenged by 10-year-olds on the position I currently hold.”
Petrovic told the audience at the Claresholm Public Library, “We must not allow the biases against the women block our success. We must overcome these biases, become better, become stronger. Human rights are women’s rights.”