A Canadian feminist icon has been quietly removed from a national honour.
Published reports this week say Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party government axed The Therese Casgrain Volunteer Award in 2010.
It was replaced the following year by the Prime Minister’s Volunteer Awards. They honour 17 Canadians from across the country each year at a gala in Ottawa presided over by the prime minister.
It’s not the first time Casgrain Volunteer Award has been dropped. In 1990, it was killed by the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney. It was revived in 2001 by Jean Chretien’s Liberal Party government.
Therese Casgrain was one of the leaders in the battle to win the vote for women in Quebec, a fight finally won in 1940. She also served as head of the CCF in Quebec, becoming the first woman to head a political party in Canada. In 1970, she was named to the Senate by Liberal Party Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
A year after her 1981 death, Mr. Trudeau created the award in her honour.
The head of the Montreal-based Therese Casgrain Foundation, Michele Nadeau, Ms. Casgrain’s grandaugher, says she was not consulted about whether the award should be eliminated in 2010.
In 2012, an image of Ms. Casgrain and the volunteer-award medal disappeared from Canada’s $50 bill. It was replaced by the image of an icebreaker on a new currency series.
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