1967: Royal Commission of the Status of Women

Cover of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women report

 

The Royal Commission on the Status of Women was a Canadian commission to examine the status of women and to make recommendations which should be undertaken by the Canadian federal government to ensure equal opportunities between men and women.

Commission commenced work on February 16, 1967 and their chair person was Florence Bird.

 

 

The Commission discovered that:

    • in 1970 only 3.9% of managers were women;
    • although 8 out of 10 provinces had equal-pay laws, women were still paid less than men for doing the same work; and
    • two thirds of people that were on welfare were women.

In 1970, the Commission came out with 167 recommendations to ensure that men and women had equal opportunities.  Some recommendations were:

    • “gender” and “marital status” be prohibited as grounds for discrimination by employers;
    • training programs offered by the federal government be made more open to women;
    • the federal government name more women judges to all courts within its jurisdiction;
    • more qualified women from each province be appointed to the Senate as seats became vacant, until a more equitable balance between men and women were achieved;
    • employed women be granted eighteen weeks of unemployment benefits for maternity leave;
    • Birth control;
    • Pensions; and
    • Day care.

As a result, the Commission helped establish an agenda of reform for women’s-rights groups in the 1970s.

The following video pays tribute to the challenges of that time:

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