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The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated. Though Queen Elizabeth II has appeared on the $20 bill since she was eight years old, identifiable Canadian women have only appeared on a Canadian banknote once. In 2004, the statue of the Famous Five from Parliament Hill and Olympic Plaza in Calgary, and the medal for the Thérèse Casgrain Volunteer Award were featured on the back of the $50 note. They were the first Canadian women to appear on our currency. However, in 2011, they were replaced by an icebreaker named for a man (see Roald Amundsen). The new bill was part of a series of notes meant to highlight technical innovation and achievement, but the change sparked controversy. Other than the image of a nameless female scientist on the $100 note issued in 2011, and two female Canadian Forces officers and a young girl on the $10 bill issued in 2001 , Canadian women were absent from Canadian bills. On 8 March 2016, International Women’s Day, the Bank of Canada launched a public consultation to choose an iconic Canadian woman who would be featured on a banknote, released in the next series of bills in 2018. More than 26,000 submissions poured in. Of those, 461 names met the qualifying criteria, and the list was pared down to a long list of 12 and finally a short list of five. The final selection will be announced on 8 December 2016. But how did we get here?

The Women’s Memorial March (WMM) is held every year on 14 February, Valentine’s Day, in cities across Canada and the United States. The WMM started in 1992 in Vancouver, BC, following the murder of Indigenous woman Cheryl Ann Joe. The first Women’s Memorial March began as a small memorial for Joe, but grew to become an annual march to honour all missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. The Vancouver march draws thousands of people, while women’s memorial marches have spread to more than 20 cities across Canada and the United States.

The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom was founded 1915 in The Hague, the Netherlands, by women active in the Women's Suffrage movement in Europe and North America. These women wished to end WWI and seek ways to ensure that no more wars took place.

Women's Labour Leagues emerged in Canada prior to WWI. Modelled on the British Labour Leagues, auxiliaries to the Independent Labour Party, their purpose was to defend the struggles of women workers and support the labour movement.

Canadian women have participated in many social movements, both on their own, and allied with men.

Women’s movements (or, feminist movements) during the period 1985–present — sometimes referred to as third- or fourth-wave feminism — engaged in multiple campaigns, from employment equity and daycare, to anti-racism and ending poverty and violence against women.

Women's Musical Club of Saskatoon. Founded in 1912 through the efforts of Mrs G.E. Craney and others, with a membership of 24 (later as many as 40) determined by audition.

Women's Musical Club of Toronto. Founded in Toronto ca 1898. It was initiated by Mrs George Dickson, principal of St Margaret's College for Ladies (and the club's first president), Mrs Sanford Evans, a pianist, and Mary Smart, a singer who later organized the club's first choral society.

Women's Musical Club of Winnipeg. In 1990 the fifth-oldest existing club of its kind in Canada. It began informally in 1894 when six women - Mrs Gerald F. Brophy, Mrs L.A. Hamilton, Mrs H.A. Higginson, Mrs Angus Kirkland, Mrs F.H. Matthewson, and Mrs Fred Stobart - met weekly in one of their homes.

Women's musical clubs. Associations of music lovers formed with the aim of improving the members' knowledge and appreciation of music, enriching the concert life of the local community, and encouraging young artists.

In the early 19th century affluent women grouped together at the local level for charitable and religious purposes. They set up shelters and orphanages to help needy women and children, and worked for their churches through ladies' auxiliaries.

Women's Studies (also referred to as Feminist Studies) is a generic label for a diverse and fast growing area of knowledge. The first few courses in Women's Studies were taught at Canadian universities in the early 1970s.

Workers' Educational Association, was founded in Toronto in 1918 by university professors and trade unionists interested in providing, on the model of the British WEA, noncredit evening classes for working people.

Workers Unity League the Workers Unity League (WUL) is a national trade union federation that was formed in 1929 on the initiative of the Communist Party Of Canada in line with the decision of the Communist International (Comintern) in 1928 that communists break with their previous policy of working inside existing labour parties and labour unions to push for more militant stances. The new policy stressed the need for revolutionary organizations independent of the existing...

Working-class history is the story of the changing conditions and actions of all working people. Most adult Canadians today earn their living in the form of wages and salaries and thus share the conditions of dependent employment associated with the definition of "working class."