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For the week of July 8, 2024.

On July 10, 1896, Thérèse Casgrain was born in Montréal, Quebec, to Blanche MacDonald and Sir Rodolphe Forget, a wealthy lawyer, financier, and politician. Following her marriage to lawyer and politician Pierre-François Casgrain in 1916, she entered public life and quickly rose to prominence as a leader of the movement for women’s right to vote in Quebec.

In Quebec, the Montréal Local Council of Women (1893), the Fédération nationale Saint-Jean-Baptiste (1907), and the Montreal Suffrage Association (1913) led the movement for women’s voting rights. They faced significant opposition, especially from the Catholic church, which used its prominent place within French Canadian society to oppose women’s participation in public life. The women’s movement failed to effect change in Quebec, even as it made gains elsewhere in Canada. Other provinces and the federal government extended voting rights to women between 1916 and 1922. Most women in Quebec were eligible to vote in federal, but not provincial, elections after 1920. In addition, at the federal level, it would be years before the extension of this fundamental right to Asian Canadians (1948), Inuit (1950), and First Nations women (1960).

In 1922, Thérèse Casgrain became the first vice-president of the Comité provincial pour le suffrage des femmes. She was elected president in 1928, just before its reorganization as the League des droits de la femme. It grew to more than 400 members under her leadership. She brought her feminist message to even more people with Fémina, the bilingual radio show she hosted from 1935 to 1943, which sought to raise awareness of current affairs and questions related to the rights of women. During this period, she gained new political influence through her husband, who rose through the ranks of the Liberal party to become Speaker of the House of Commons (1936–1940) and then Secretary of State of Canada (1940–1941). In 1938, she used her influence to organize a delegation of about 40 women to the provincial Liberal party convention. She led them as vice-president of the Liberal Women’s Club of Montréal and secured support from influential party members for their proposal: they successfully advocated for the inclusion of women’s right to vote in Quebec in the Liberal party platform. The Liberals formed government in 1940 and soon after fulfilled this campaign promise, introducing legislation that gave most women the right to cast a ballot and run for office in provincial elections.

In the years that followed, Casgrain continued to fight for the rights of women and helped found the Fédération des femmes du Québec in 1966. She also fought for social justice and civil liberties through her active involvement in politics with the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation from 1946 to 1963 and her participation in the League for Human Rights from 1963 to 1970.

Thérèse Casgrain was designated a national historic person in 2022. The Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada (HSMBC) advises the Government of Canada on the commemoration of national historic persons—individuals who have made unique and enduring contributions to the history of Canada.