Sheila Bautz
Special to the Herald
This is the first story in a two-part series on Saskatchewan Women’s History Month. Part two will run in Saturday’s Daily Herald.
The province of Saskatchewan is celebrating Women’s History Month, a time to explore and recognize the multi-cultural and vast contributions from both non-Indigenous and Indigenous women in Saskatchewan. Such contributions have — and continue to — make advancements with creating a progressive society.
“The Government of Saskatchewan has proclaimed October as Women’s History Month, and I encourage everyone to celebrate the women who made a difference in our lives and continue to move us forward,” said the Alana Ross, Saskatchewan Minister Responsible for the Status of Women. “We owe a great deal of thanks to the women in Saskatchewan who broke barriers, made history, and changed the world through perseverance and immense effort.”
In 1917, Saskatchewan women won the historical right to vote and be accepted as human beings with human rights. However, it took until 1929 for Canada’s highest court of appeal to recognize and legally define a woman as “a person”. During the Second World War, the women, now known as “people” because the courts at this point admitted that they were, continued to perform hard labour and strenuous work — but with pay — by filling more occupational roles in factories and on farm land due to the men going off to war.
The previous Federal Minister of Women and Gender Equality Canada, Marci Ien, launched the beginning of the 2024 Women’s History Month in October last year with powerful statements.
“We would not be where we are today without the women in Canada, past and present, who have worked tirelessly to advance the rights of women and promote gender equality,” said Ien. “During October, we celebrate Women’s History Month as a time to commemorate and honour these women.”
In October 1992, the Government of Canada launched the first annual Women’s History Month to recognize the historic decision in 1929. However, the voting rights won by non-Indigenous women in Saskatchewan in 1917 did not initially apply equally for First Nations and Indigenous women. First Nations and Indigenous people were not recognized or defined as a person, and were continually denied the right to vote or hire legal representation until decades later.
Past Federal Minister Ien further acknowledged in 2024 that presently, “We also must recognize that the journey toward gender equality is inextricably linked with intersectionality, and acknowledge that the diverse experiences of women—across race, ethnicity, ability, and identity—shape their unique challenges and contributions to our society, at home, at work and beyond.”
After women won the right to vote in 1917, the first elected woman government representative in Saskatchewan, Sarah Ramsland, was successfully elected into the Saskatchewan Legislature after her husband, Magnus, died shortly after winning his elected seat. She was elected twice and served the Pelly District from 1919 to 1925. Historical documents from the Government of Canada state that in the final hours of Ramsland’s second term, she “called for an amendment to grant women the same right as men to apply for divorce on the grounds of a spouse’s adultery.”
However, the evolution of First Nations and Indigenous women’s legal voting rights demonstrates a long, winding path continuously blocked and full of patriarchal legal loopholes intended to maintain the dominant colonial patriarch culture of the time.
From Confederation until 1920, The Indian Act set up by the Federal government ensured that First Nations people could not vote in federal or provincial elections. The government’s law and legal standard to test if someone was “a person” viewed First Nations people as wards of the state incapable of managing their own affairs. As such, this law was designed by the government to practice coercive control over First Nations people’s best interests.
When it came to the human right to cast a vote in a democracy, the only First Nations people who were allowed to vote at that time were those considered to be successfully enfranchised. Canadian history tells us that only 250 First Nations people nation-wide were allowed to vote as a result.
Enfranchisement required a First Nations voter to have a university education, and a probation period of three years. However, due to the cultural and physical genocide occurring in residential schools — coupled with historic mounds of evidence demonstrating various abuses, bias, oppression and inequality – all contributed to ensuring First Nations people failed during this time. As such, many First Nations people were also purposely prevented from becoming enfranchised.
Beginning in 1951, First Nations men who applied for enfranchisement were required by law to provide the name of their wife and children. By doing so, they would then also be enfranchised and allowed to vote at their legal voting age. Until 1985, Aboriginal women continued to lose their Indian status if they married a white man.
In 1954 in Saskatchewan, Gwen O’Soup of the Key First Nation became the province’s first post-treaty female chief, otherwise known as a Chieftess. O’Soup was 24 years old at the time. According to the Federation of Sovereign First Nations (FSIN), the federation publicly affirmed O’Soup was also Canada’s first elected female Chief(tess).
With O’Soup elected in as the first Chieftess in Saskatchewan and Canada, the success of the election reignited a succession of First Nations women becoming a Chieftess. Also voted in were Alphonsine Lafond of Muskeg Lake Cree First Nation in 1960, Piapot’s Cree First Nation’s Rose Desjarlais in 1969, and Carry the Kettle Nakoda First Nation’s Jessie Saulteaux in 1971. The elected Chieftesses represent one type of First Nations leadership. Many Indigenous women continued to establish careers as doctors, professors and educators, lawyers, social workers, and protectors of resources that sustain life.
