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October 14, 1999

RECIPIENTS ANNOUNCED FOR GOVERNOR GENERAL'S AWARDS IN COMMEMORATION OF THE PERSONS CASE

OTTAWA  -- Five Canadian women have been chosen to receive the 1999 Governor General's Awards in Commemoration of the Persons Case. The Honourable Hedy Fry, Secretary of State (Multiculturalism) (Status of Women) announced the names of the recipients today.

They are:

• Ms. Bertha Allen, Inuvik, Northwest Territories
• Dr. Maria Eriksen, Calgary, Alberta
• Ms. Enid Page, Aylmer, Quebec
• Ms. Anne Marie Perry, Tignish, Prince Edward Island
• Dr. Bette Stephenson, Richmond Hill, Ontario

"The recipients of these Awards represent the outstanding lifelong contributions of Canadian women who have given selflessly of their time, talent and energy in order to promote the equality of women in Canadian society," Dr. Fry stated. "While Canadian women have made enormous progress since that groundbreaking day in 1929, much work still needs to be done to ensure that Canadian women enjoy safe, healthy and prosperous lives. We are very fortunate in our country to have women like this year's recipients who have taken up this cause." The Government of Canada established the Governor General's Awards in Commemoration of the Persons Case in 1979 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of this decision, and to salute the contributions of contemporary women to the advancement of women's equality.

The Awards are Canada's foremost tribute to individuals who have made an outstanding contribution toward promoting the equality of women in Canada. The Awards commemorate the lengthy legal and political struggle for women's constitutional right to sit in Canada's Senate, undertaken in the 1920s under the leadership of five Alberta women (Emily Murphy, Louise McKinney, Nellie McClung, Irene Parlby and Henrietta Muir Edwards).

Their efforts, which became known as the Persons Case, were rewarded in the decision rendered by the British Privy Council on October 18, 1929, declaring that the reference to "persons" in Section 24 of the British North America Act did indeed include women, thus making them eligible to be summoned to and become members of the Senate of Canada.

Coinciding with other celebrations surrounding the 70th anniversary of the Persons Case, including the unveiling of the Famous Five statues, the 1999 Awards will be presented at a ceremony at the Palliser Hotel in Calgary, Alberta on Monday, October 18, 1999 at 10:00 a.m.

Nominations for the 1999 Governor General's Awards in Commemoration of the Persons Case were submitted by individuals, women's and other organizations across Canada. The five recipients were selected by an independent selection committee.

There have been 107 recipients of the Awards to date, including Thérèse Casgrain, leader of the effort for women's right to vote in Quebec; Dorothy Livesay, one of Canada's foremost women poets and winner of the Governor General's Medal for Poetry in 1944 and 1947; Marguerite Bergeron-Tremblay, a long-standing women's activist in the Lac St-Jean region of Quebec; and Marie Hamilton, champion of the advancement of Black women.

Biographies of this year's recipients