The following items are some useful information about Therese Casgrain. Sources of these articles are unknown:
Politics: Thérèse CasgrainThérèse Casgrain entered the public sphere during the federal election of 1921 when she conducted a highly successful campaign for her husband who was prevented from doing so by illness. She became sole president of the Provincial Franchise Committee (later, the League for Women's Rights) in 1928--a position she held for 14 years. In November 1929 she appeared before the Dorion Commission which had been set up to look into such things as: a woman's right to her own earnings, the right to bring law suits without her husband's consent, etc. One of the main obstacles to winning suffrage in Quebec was the lack of support from rural French women. She was able to reach many of them through her radio program, "Femina," which was broadcast over French and English networks, and by speaking at conventions.
Following the war and the final achievement of the vote in 1940 she continued faithfully to press for child protection laws, prison reform, government appointments for women and amendments to the civil code. She became vice-president of the National Federation of Liberal Women and in 1948 resigned to join the CCF Party. She soon became vice-chairperson of the national CCF executive and in 1951 was chosen Quebec Social Democratic Party leader, which she held until 1957--the first woman party leader anywhere in Canada.
When the NDP succeeded the CCF in 1961 Casgrain continued her active support, holding the position of national vice-chairperson. "I can't imagine a woman who has the best interest of her children at heart not taking an interest in politics," she said.
"I am convinced that until we have more women in politics--openly, flagrantly and unashamedly committed to the struggle for the liberation of woman and determined to change traditional power politics to make it more responsive to the dispossessed of this earth--we as women are doomed to many more years of oppression and exploitation." (Rosemary Brown, 1977).
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Here is some more information about Therese Casgrain:
Thérèse Forget was born in a comfortable middle-class family in Montreal. At the age of 19, she married Pierre Casgrain who was a federal Member of Parliament from 1917 to 1941. Despite her active family life, she became involved in the country's social and political life at the beginning of the 1920s. A founding member of the Provincial Committee for Women's Suffrage in 1921, she campaigned tirelessly for the social, political and economic rights of women. Her struggles profoundly marked the feminist movement in Quebec.
In 1926, she founded the Ligue de la feunesse féminine, participated in the foundation of the Fédération des oeuvres de charité candienne-française and established the Montreal Symphony Concerts Society. In 1928, she led an arduous battle against the clergy and the political elite of the time, under the leadership of Henri Bourassa, for the legal rights of women and to obtain the right to vote for women in provincial elections. That objective was realized in 1940 when the Liberal government of Adélard Godbout came to power. During the 1930s she became a journalist and presented a broadcast series called Fémina on Radio-Canada. During the Second World War, she was one of the two Presidents of the Women's Surveillance Committee for the Wartime Prices and Trade Board. In 1942, she spoke out against conscription and campaigned as an independent Liberal candidate in the federal elections. In 1946, she joined the CCF (the ancestor of the New Democratic Party), which was closer to her political ideals. She became President of the Quebec wing of that party and ran a number of times as candidate in the provincial elections without being elected. In the 1940s, she took part in the international meetings of socialist parties and fought beside intellectuals and trade unionists against the government of Maurice Duplessis. In 1962, she became President of the Voice of Women, a movement protesting the proliferation of nuclear arms, and in 1966, she founded the Fédérations des femmes du Québec. She took part in organizing aid for Vietnam war victims and was a three-time President of the League for Human Rights.
In 1970, she was appointed to the Senate of Canada, but she had to retire the following year because she had reached the age of 75. She continued, nonetheless, to fight to promote the rights of Amerindiens, for the abolition of mandatory retirement at 65 and to improve the lot of seniors. A holder of 11 honorary doctorates, the title of Grande Montréalaise in 1980 and numerous prestigious distinctions, Thérèse Casgrain, the Canadian activist woman of the century, died at 85, on November 3, 1981. In 1982, the Government of Canada created the Thérèse Casgrain Award to emphasize and extend the work of this eminent Canadian. In 1985, the Canada Post Corporation issued a stamp in her honour to commemorate the end of the United Nations Decade for Women.
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