Editing History of Canada (section)

===Women's suffrage===
{{further|History of Canadian women#Feminism and woman suffrage}}
{{See also|Canadian women during the world wars}}
When Canada was founded, women could not vote in federal elections. Women did have a local vote in some provinces, as in [[Canada West]] from 1850, where women owning land could vote for school trustees. By 1900 other provinces adopted similar provisions, and in 1916 Manitoba took the lead in extending full [[women's suffrage]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |first1=Susan |last1=Jackel |first2=Dominique |last2=Millette |date=March 4, 2015 |url=http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/womens-suffrage/ |title=Women's Suffrage |encyclopedia=[[The Canadian Encyclopedia]] |publisher=[[Historica Canada]] |edition=online |access-date=January 17, 2016 |archive-date=February 25, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150225094612/http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/womens-suffrage/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> Simultaneously suffragists gave strong support to the prohibition movement, especially in Ontario and the Western provinces.<ref>{{cite journal |first1=John H. |last1=Thompson |title='The Beginning of Our Regeneration': The Great War and Western Canadian Reform Movements |journal=Historical Papers |date=1972 |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=231 <!--|pp=227–245--> |doi=10.7202/030750ar |url=https://www.erudit.org/revue/hp/1972/v7/n1/030750ar.pdf|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |first1=Paul |last1=Voisey |title=The "Votes For Women" Movement |journal=Alberta History |date=Summer 1975 |volume=23 |issue=3 |pages=10–23 |url=http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/bibliography/9021.23.3/12.html}}</ref>
[[File:Canadian nurses voting 1917.jpg|thumb|Nursing sisters at the [[Canadian women during the World Wars|Canadian hospital in France during the First World War]] casting their votes for the 1917 general election]]
The ''[[Military Voters Act]]'' of 1917 gave the vote to British women who were war widows or had sons or husbands serving overseas. Unionist Prime Minister Borden pledged himself during the 1917 campaign to equal suffrage for women. After his landslide victory, he introduced a bill in 1918 for extending the franchise to women. This passed without division but did not apply to Quebec provincial and municipal elections. The women of Quebec gained full suffrage in 1940. The first woman elected to Parliament was [[Agnes Macphail]] of Ontario in 1921.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Catherine L. |last1=Cleverdon |title=The Woman Suffrage Movement in Canada: The Start of Liberation, 1900–20 |url=https://archive.org/details/womansuffragemov00clev |url-access=registration |edition=2nd |date=1974 |publisher=University of Toronto |isbn=978-0-8020-6218-5}}</ref>