1971

Quebec finally allows women jurors after eight women were jailed earlier in the year for protesting an all-male jury law.

The federal government amends tthe Canada Labour Code to prohibit sex discrimination, reinforce equal pay for equal work, and establish a 17-week maternity leave.

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1972

Rosemary Brown, NDP MLA

Brown served as a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for British Columbia’s New Democratic Party (NDP). She was the first black woman to be elected to political office in Canada.

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1973

Pauline Jewett, NDP MP

Jewett became a Member of Parliament (MP), focusing on issues of peace, disarmament, and women’s equality while in office. She was the first woman president of a co-educational university – Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C. A century earlier, women were not even allowed to enroll in most universities in Canada.

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Indian Act & Marriage

The Supreme Court of Canada rules that the Indian Act has the right to take away treaty rights from First Nations Women who marry non-status men. As a result, First Nations women who married non-status men were no longer considered to be "Indian" under the Act, nor were their children.

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1974

The RCMP hires its first woman officer, one hundred years after a 1874 magazine stated that a “woman’s first and only place is in her home."

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1976

The first Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) Women’s Conference is held.

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1980

A 1957 rule that disallowed women fishers who worked with their husbands from receiving Unemployment Insurance (UI) is overturned.

Alexa McDonough

McDonough becomes the first woman to be elected leader of a provincial political party while holding a seat in the legislature (Nova Scotia).

Jeanne-Mathilde Sauve

Sauve was the first woman to be chosen as a Speaker of the House of Commons. She was an Indigenous woman from Saskatchewan who served in the House until January 15, 1984. Sauve went on to become the 23rd Governor General of Canada.

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