Votes for Women
   I am strongly of the opinion, and have been for a good many years, and I had hoped that Canada would have the honour of first placing women in the position that she is certainly eventually, after centuries of oppression, to obtain....I had hoped that we in Canada would have had the great honour of leading in the cause of securing the complete emancipation of women, of completely establishing her equality as a human being and a member of society with man.

John A. Macdonald, quoted in Michael Bliss, Right Honourable Men (HarperCollins: 1994), p. 26.