West End mural honours Manitoba's suffragist movement

A new mural in Winnipeg's West End pays tribute to Manitoba's suffragist movement and celebrates 100 years since some women in the province won the right to vote.

A Woman's Parliament, painted by local artist Mandy Van Leeuwen for the West End BIZ, was unveiled on Tuesday at 560 Sargent Ave., at the corner of Sargent and Furby.

Manitoba was the first place in Canada to bring in women's suffrage, on Jan. 28, 1916. That triggered a wave of changes first in Western Canada and finally at the federal level in 1919. Indigenous people, it should be noted, did not get the vote federally until 1960.

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On Jan. 28, 1916, Manitoba became the first province to pass legislation that enshrined women's right to vote and hold elected office.

It started a domino effect across the country, as one province and then the next introduced women's suffrage. Two years later, the bill giving woman the right to vote was passed in the Parliament of Canada.

However, many women including indigenous women were not able to vote until decades later.

Manitobans have been celebrating the 100-year milestone in numerous ways, from hosting museum exhibits and networking events to knitting scarves for the statues of The Famous Five on the Manitioba Legislative Building grounds.