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Milestones in Canadian Women's History: the 1990's


[ 1991 | 1992 | 1993 ]

1990
    bullet Canada wins the first Women's World Hockey Championships.
    bullet time runs out on the Meech Lake Accord and it fails to pass. Canadians signal their dissatisfaction with Constitution-making carried out behind closed doors.

1991
    bullet the federal government appoints the Canadian Panel on Violence Againste Women chaired by Patricia Freeman Marshall and Marthe Asselin Vaillancourt.
    bullet by a tie vote of 43 to 43, the Senate defeats proposed legislation to recriminalize abortion. Canada is left without an abortion law.
    bullet following the collapse of the Meech Lake Accord, the federal government releases a new package of constitutional proposals known as the Charlottetown Accord.
    bullet Wisecracks, a production of the National Film Board's Studio D, is released, putting to rest the laughable notion that feminists have no sense of humour.
    bullet Rita Johnston wins the leadership of the British Columbia Social Credit party and becomes Premier of the province. She is Canada's first woman premier.
    bullet York University admits its first students into a Ph.D. program in Women's Studies.

1992
    bullet federal government holds a referendum on its constitutional proposals. A majority of Canadians reject them.
    bullet Roberta Bondar becomes the first Canadian woman to go to outer space.
    bullet Nicole Dunsdon, a 22-year-old University of Alberta student, becomes the last Miss Canada. First held in 1946, the contest falls victim to dropping television ratings and changing attitudes toward women.
    bullet Quebec City lawyer Paule Gauthier becomes the first female President of the Canadian Bar Association.
    bullet Virginie Larivière, a 14-year-old from St-Polycarpe, Quebec, presents federal officials a petition signed by nearly 1.3 million Canadians calling for federal legislation to limit television violence.
    bullet the Supreme Court of Canada rules in the case of Olive Dickason, a 72-year-old professor of native history at the University of Alberta. The Court finds that in the context of the tenure system, discrimination based on age is reasonable and justifiable. Like many women, Dickason began her academic career in later life, having taught for only ten years before hit the mandatory retirement age of 65.

1993
    bullet Kim Campbell was sworn in as Canada's first woman Prime Minister on June 25.



2000's




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