Mr. Speaker, October is women's history month. In this Année de la Francophonie, which is particularly exciting in Quebec, I would like to pay special tribute to those women who fought for the right to vote for women in Quebec.
In 1907, Marie Gérin-Lajoie and Caroline Beïque founded the Fédération nationale Saint-Jean-Baptiste to promote women's civil and political rights. They called for a reform of the civil code at the time and demanded a commission of inquiry be set up to examine women's rights.
In 1922, still not having obtained the right to vote, Marie Gérin-Lajoie went to Quebec City with a group of women in order to lobby the premier. In the following years, Idola St-Jean and Thérèse Casgrain took over. After a number of years of vigorous efforts, women in Quebec finally obtained the right to vote on April 25, 1940.
Since then, because of the profound convictions of these activists, a number of Quebec women have been elected to the National Assembly of Quebec and to the House of Commons. Despite that, however, the men to women ratio is far from representative of Canada's total population.