Women’s right to vote in the west

Starting in the 1870s Canadian women organized to demand the right to vote and created local, provincial, and national associations. In the west, they joined together in groups such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, which promoted women’s suffrage with the aim of influencing legislation on alcohol consumption, and the Political Equality League, which sought to obtain provincial enfranchisement for women in Manitoba. There they led a successful campaign, with the result that in January 1916 Manitoba became the first province in Canada to give women the vote. In the months that followed, Alberta and Saskatchewan announced similar initiatives. Women in British Columbia obtained the right to vote in provincial ballots the following year.