On March 8, people around the world celebrated International Women’s Day, recognizing the contributions that women have made to their communities and across the globe.

Here in the Pontiac, there is no shortage of females heavily involved in making the region a . . .

better place, from entrepreneurs to firefighters to municipal politicians. This isn’t a recent development, but rather a continuation of the efforts of the strong women that came before them.

Quebec was the last province in Canada to give women the right to vote and run in provincial elections, with the passing of Bill 18 in 1940. They had been allowed to vote in federal elections since 1918, but the curmudgeons in Quebec high society took an extra 22 years to reach the same conclusion.

In fact, up until 1929, women in Canada were not recognized as “persons” under the British North America Act, based on the pedantic argument that since the document only used the pronoun “he” when referring to a singular “person”, it implicitly excluded women from positions of power, such as the Senate.

A group of five women banded together to challenge the law and were initially rejected by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1927. It took an appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of Great Britain, then the highest court in the land, to overturn the decision. Lord Sankey, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, had this gem of a quote for those opposed to women’s personhood:

“The exclusion of women from all public offices is a relic of days more barbarous than ours. And to those who would ask why the word ‘person’ should include females, the obvious answer is, why should it not?”

Closer to home, Portage du Fort businesswoman Elsie Gibbons was elected as the first female mayor in the province in 1953, a position she would hold for the next 18 years. From 1959 to 1961, she again made history as the first female warden in Quebec (and possibly the entire country), leading the 25 mayors of what was then known as Pontiac County.

The MRC Pontiac’s council chambers currently bear her name and her portrait adorns the wall. In 2017, the Quebec Federation of Municipalities formally recognized Gibbons’ contribution to society with an eponymous award to recognize women’s involvement in municipal politics.

All these years later, there is currently a woman leading the MRC council, six of 18 municipalities within MRC Pontiac and also the Municipality of Pontiac. Countless others serve on municipal councils, as well as heading up local recreation associations and volunteer groups. Businesses owned and operated by women populate the main streets of every town in the region.

All of this has come to pass less than 100 years after women were fighting to be recognized as people under the law. The precedent set by pioneers like Gibbons is nothing short of remarkable, and is a legacy that should be celebrated.

Let’s hear it for the ladies.

Caleb Nickerson