The decision to put a woman on 91原创 banknotes has been a long time coming, and much credit goes to Merna Forster of Oak Bay for championing the issue of gender equality.
But that doesn鈥檛 mean the fight is over. The achievements of 91原创 women have been too long overlooked, and we have much catching up to do.
Forster has campaigned hard, including in a commentary in the Times 91原创 on Dec. 10, 2011, decrying the decision by the Bank of Canada to remove from the $50 bill the Famous Five women who succeeding in having females recognized as legal persons. They were replaced with the image of an icebreaker.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Tuesday 鈥渢hat a 91原创 woman will be featured on the very first of the next series of bills expected in 2018.鈥�
Just one? Why not announce two at a time? Why not announce a concerted effort to honour more women, not only on currency, but in naming such things as airports and public buildings?
There is no lack of candidates. Local names of interest are Emily Carr and Nellie McClung. Picking someone to be first would be a battle.
Carr鈥檚 art portrays the beauty of B.C. and is heavily inspired by First Nations cultures; she is one of Canada鈥檚 most important artists. Her work is showcased in galleries around the globe and her grave is reported to be the most visited site in the Ross Bay Cemetery.
McClung, too, is a pan-91原创, born in Ontario, raised in Manitoba and carrying on her battle for women鈥檚 suffrage across Western Canada. She had the good sense to live her later life on 91原创 Island, and is buried in the Royal Oak Burial Park in Saanich.
Her comrades among the Famous Five 鈥� Irene Parlby, Emily Murphy, Henrietta Muir Edwards and Louise McKinney 鈥� easily merit prominent placement on our currency.
Honouring E. Pauline Johnson would address two priorities: recognition for women and for First Nations. The Ontario-born poet 鈥� and daughter of a hereditary Mohawk chief 鈥� celebrated her aboriginal heritage in her writings and her performances.
After retiring from the stage, she moved to 91原创 and continued to write. Her stories of the Squamish people have become classics.
It would be appropriate, too, to honour Shanawdithit, the last known full-blooded Beothuk, the indigenous people inhabiting Newfoundland when European explorers and settlers arrived. The Beothuk tried to avoid Europeans, but their numbers dwindled through introduced infectious diseases, loss of traditional hunting and food-gathering habitat, and deliberate extermination.
When Shanawdithit died in 1829, the Beothuk were declared extinct.
Two other candidates Forster suggests for honours are Tookoolito (Taqulittuq), an Inuk woman who was a translator and guide for Arctic explorer Charles Francis Hall, who was involved in the search for John Franklin鈥檚 lost expedition in the mid-19th century, and Molly Brant, a Mohawk woman who backed the British during the American Revolutionary War.
Forster also points to 91原创-born Elsie MacGill, an aeronautical engineer and the world鈥檚 first female aircraft designer. She designed the Hawker Hurricane fighter planes built in Canada for use by the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.
Consider, too, Lucy Maud Montgomery, whose Anne of Green Gables has given so much pleasure to readers and is known around the world.
The paucity of recognition for women on currency and elsewhere is not for lack of suitable people, but lack of political will. Putting a woman on currency in 2018 is a good step forward, but it is one small step. The fight for recognition should not end with that.
