history

The First Fight for Suffrage by Renée Bondy

The First Fight for Suffrage

Emily Howard Jennings Stowe, remembered mainly as a tireless advocate for women’s suffrage and education, was also the first woman to have a medical practice in Canada. After her initial request to attend classes in chemistry and physiology at the University of Toronto in 1865 was denied,

Stowe wrote an objection letter to the vice-president of the university stating that “These university doors will open some day to women.”

The Dearth of a Nation by Sheila Nopper

The Dearth of a Nation

In this article, Afua Cooper blows the whistle on Canada's history of slavery and gives a voice to unsung heroes of the past.

Afua Cooper is a poet and writer whose work includes Memories Have Tongue, Utterances and Incantations: Women, Poetry and Dub, and (with co-editors Peggy Bristow and Dionne Brand) We're Rooted Here and They Can't Pull Us Up: Essays in African Canadian Women's History.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms 20 Years Later by Debra Parkes and Sara Lugtig

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms 20 Years Later

The federal government wants you to mark April 17, 2002 on your calendar. On that day, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms will turn 20. There will be ceremonies on Parliament Hill, academic conferences and media retrospectives commemorating this milestone in Canada's constitutional history.

The Speech that Shook the Country by Sunera Thobani

The Speech that Shook the Country

Sunera Thobani's speech at the "Women's Resistance: From Victimization to Criminalization" conference in Ottawa on October 1 2001, provoked a storm of controversy after her remarks were interpreted as blaming the September 11th terrorist attacks on U.S. foreign policy. Canada's Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien, described it as a "terrible speech that we are 100 percent against."