On February 14th, 1981, over 1000 women from across Canada streamed into the West Block on Parliament Hill to attend the Ad Hoc Conference on Women and the Constitution. The conference was organized by an improvised committee who felt strongly about the need for Canadian women to have a voice in shaping the content of the Charter, at a time when women made up less than 6% of sitting MPs in the House of Commons and very few women were appointed to the Senate. Announced and planned in mere weeks through collaboration and sheer tenacity, the “Ad Hockers” invited women and women’s groups to participate in the Constitution building process.
This conference, and the national women’s lobby that followed in its wake, led to the inclusion of Section 28 in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: “Notwithstanding anything in this Charter,” Section 28 reads, “the rights and freedoms referred to in it are guaranteed equally to male and female persons.”[1] Section 28 was intended to ensure that sex discrimination could not be interpreted as less severe than other grounds of discrimination protected by section 15: “Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age, or mental or physical disability.”[2]
To mark the 45th anniversary of the Ad Hoc Conference on Women and the Constitution, the following exhibit reconstructs the conference and surrounding events through an exploration of archival material held by the Archives and Special Collections (ARCS) at the University of Ottawa and the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections (CTASC) at York University. This exhibit was created in tandem with “The Virus of Inequality” symposium organized by Senator Marilou McPhedran, an original member of the Ad Hoc Committee.[3]
Left: Photograph collage from Ad Hoc Conference (14 February 1981), NAC fonds, Archives and Special Collections, 10-024-S10-F42-I3-S4
Since 1981, the impact and legacy of the Ad Hoc Conference have been contested by feminists, historians, and legal scholars. Scholars have debated whether the conference was necessary for achieving equal rights for women in the Charter; whether section 28 is redundant in relation to “equality rights” guaranteed by section 15; and whether the Ad Hoc Committee could really claim to represent political defiance given their connection to members of the political establishment.[4] Nevertheless, the conference was an impactful achievement in women’s national organizing, and the Ad Hoc Committee’s persistent lobbying efforts throughout 1981 galvanized many women who hadn’t been politically active prior to agitation around the Constitution.
Part I examines the processes and political networks involved in securing section 28 and situates the Ad Hockers within a longer history of struggle for women’s legal personhood throughout the twentieth century.
Following this historical context, Part II explores the impetus for the Ad Hoc Conference, the formation of the Ad Hoc Committee, and the unfolding of conference proceedings in the West Block of Parliament Hill. For many attendees, the conference was a unifying experience that simultaneously laid bare a web of complex tensions between feminism, multiculturalism, Indigenous sovereignty, language rights, political affiliation, and racial exclusion.
Left: Ad Hoc Conference Button (14 February 1981) CWMA Collection, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa, 10-001-S4-I101
Part III highlights how the successive “women’s lobby” engendered a widespread mobilization that unfolded throughout 1981, as the Ad Hockers pushed to rescue section 28 from the “notwithstanding clause” of section 33. Finally, the exhibit concludes by reflecting on the current position of section 28 and the work that remains to be done.
Part I
Women Mourn for Canadian Bill of Rights
The twentieth century was a time of struggle and agitation for human rights around the world. In Canada, these overlapping struggles included the Black Canadian Civil Rights movement, organized labour, Indigenous demands for sovereignty and self-determination, and women’s liberation. At times, such struggles were simultaneously emancipatory and discriminatory. For example, although women gained the right to vote in federal elections in 1918, First Nations women were permitted to vote only if they gave up their status and treaty rights; status Indigenous peoples were not permitted to vote in federal elections until 1960.[5] On the other hand, many male band leaders opposed Indigenous women’s attempts to strike gendered discrimination from The Indian Act throughout the 1970s, on the grounds of cultural sovereignty.[6]
Beyond women’s suffrage, voting laws in Canada discriminated against tenants and workers, given that property requirements were not eliminated from federal elections until 1920.[7] Throughout the country, social and institutional practices of racial segregation affecting Canadians of Black and Asian descent persisted long into the twentieth century, and racial discrimination was not nationally prohibited until the passage of the Canadian Human Rights Act in 1977. Finally, as this section demonstrates, both the Human Rights Act and the 1960 Bill of Rights failed to meet women’s demands for equality under the law.
In the early twentieth century, the women's movement focused primarily on suffrage, access to work and education, and legal and political equality. Even after 1918, the extent to which the law disavowed women as legal and political subjects was exemplified in Edwards v. A.G. of Canada, also known as The Persons Case. In 1928, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that women were not “persons” according to the British North America Act and were therefore ineligible for appointment to the Senate. The SCC based their decision on the fact that legally speaking, only men were understood as “persons” when the Act was established in 1867. Following this decision, the “Famous Five” appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, England. On October 18th, 1929, the Privy Council concluded that the word “persons” did in fact include women. In doing so, they pushed beyond the SCC’s conservative interpretation of constitutional law, based exclusively on the period in which it was originally written.[8]
Right: NAC stamps in commemoration of the 1929 Persons Case (1979) NAC fonds, Achives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa, 10-024-S11-F3-I1
Although the Persons Case represented a triumph for women to whom the political sphere was accessible, the SCC’s 1928 decision prefigured decades of conservative interpretation by Canadian courts, especially in relation to women’s equality. In the following passage, Law Professor Kerri Froc summarizes the legal mechanism by which women continued to face discrimination following the passage of the Canadian Bill of Rights in 1960:
Federally, the 1960 Canadian Bill of Rights included section 1, recognizing the existence of certain rights “without discrimination by reason of race, national origin, colour, religion or sex” and “the right of the individual to equality before the law and the protection of the law.” However, in his testimony before the ad hoc committee established to study the Bill, then-Minister of Justice Davie Fulton made the nice distinction between “equality before the law” on the basis of sex and a difference in status between men and women (and specifically, husbands and wives), advising that he believed the provision “would not be interpreted by the courts so as to say we are making men and women equal, because men and women are not equal: they are different.” In his view, “all reasonable and logical differences in [legal] status reflecting the natural consequences of the physical position occupied” would not be “over-ruled” by the Bill of Rights. [9]
As such, the Bill of Rights dictated that the law be applied equally to men and women but did nothing to address or to alter the discriminatory substance of existing laws.
For women, this conservative interpretation was shamefully illustrated in the 1973 SCC case A.G. of Canada v Lavell. In this case, Jeannette Vivian Corbiere Lavell (Wikwemikong Band) and Yvonne Bédard (Six Nations of the Grand River) set out to challenge section 12(1)(b) of the Indian Act, which held that First Nations women lost their property, status, and treaty rights if they married non-status men.[10] The same was not true for First Nations men, who retained their status following marriage and conferred it onto their non-status wives. In a 5-4 decision written by Justice Roland Ritchie, the court ruled that “equality before the law...guarantees only equality in the administration and enforcement of a law; it does not stand in the way of discriminatory laws being passed.”[11] Per The Globe and Mail, “A fair interpretation of this stand seems to be that ... Parliament can pass a law discriminating against [Indigenous peoples] or women if it wants to and the law cannot be struck down under the Bill of Rights.”[12]
Another significant decision in this period was the 1978 SCC case Bliss v. A.G. of Canada, in which the Court ruled that denying unemployment benefits to pregnant women did not constitute sex discrimination under the Bill of Rights. Bliss had been fired in March 1977, four days before giving birth to her son and did not meet the specific requirements for maternity benefits under section 30 of the Unemployment Insurance Act. However, section 46 held that pregnant persons could not receive regular unemployment benefits for eight weeks before birth and six weeks afterwards. Once again, the SCC ruled that sections 30 and 46 did not violate the principle of “equality before the law,” given that these sections were “concerned with conditions from which men are excluded.” In his now infamous and oft-quoted ruling, Justice Ritchie wrote that “any inequality between the sexes in this area is not created by legislation but by nature.”[13] For many women, these two landmark SCC cases effectively permitted discriminatory laws under the 1960 Bill of Rights.
It’s no wonder, then, that women’s organizations across Canada were eager to have their say in the constitutional package that Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government introduced in the Fall of 1980. The wording of this initial package, however, set off alarm bells at the Canadian Advisory Council for the Status of Women (CACSW), given that it was virtually identical to the Bill of Rights language guaranteeing only “equality before the law.” As underscored by CACSW legal researchers Julyan Reid, Linda McLeod, and Peggy Mason, “the equality clause in the 1960 Bill of Rights had never been interpreted to women’s benefit.”[14]
The National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL) and the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC) expressed similar concerns. Both groups were large, well-established women’s coalitions; NAC consisted of over 160 members groups across the country, and NAWL’s legislative briefs were crucial to strengthening the Charter’s section 15.
Left: Badge from the Ad Hoc Conference (14 February 1981) NAC fonds, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa, 10-024-S10-F32-I1
CACSW therefore proposed a national conference on Women and the Constitution to gather recommendations from women across Canada who would not be invited to present briefs in front of the special Joint House Committee. This conference never took place. It did, however, stir an important group of women into action: the Ad Hockers.
Part II
"Women Were Angry in January 1981"
In her report about the Ad Hoc Conference on Women and the Constitution, Ada Hill of The Federation of Women Teachers’ Associations of Ontario (FWTAO) begins by stating that “Women were angry all across Canada in January 1981.”[15] In large part, this anger was directed at Lloyd Axworthy, the Minister responsible for the Status of Women. Per Hill, women across the country had learned “from the publicity surrounding the courageous resignation of Doris Anderson from her position as President of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women... that Mr. Lloyd Axworthy had influenced the Council Executive in its decision to cancel our Conference on Women and the Constitution.”[16] As the following section demonstrates, Axworthy’s perceived betrayal of the women’s movement was the first in a long year of political sidelining marked by women’s effort to claw their way back into the constitutional process.
The first stirrings of trouble between Axworthy and CACSW President Doris Anderson became apparent to insiders during the fall of 1980, when Axworthy assured the Prime Minister that CACSW would support an entrenched Charter.[17] The problem, however, was that Axworthy had not consulted with these women and was wholly unaware of their legitimate concerns vis-a-vis the Charter's resemblance to the ineffectual Bill of Rights. In response, Anderson wrote a letter to the Prime Minister and held a press conference detailing CACSW’s objections.[18]
Women were especially alarmed following a series of NAC workshops on the Constitution held in Toronto in October 1980, when they learned that clause 1 of the Charter guaranteed civil rights “subject only to such reasonable limitations as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society with a parliamentary system of government.”[19] Of course, many women were familiar with centuries of common law that justified sex discrimination based on “reasonable” distinctions between women and men. Axworthy once again ran afoul of women’s groups when he dismissed suggestions by workshop attendees, stating instead that women should trust the federal government to have their best interests at heart. The women were not convinced.[20]
Left: Marilou McPhedran's notes for NAC meeting on Women, Human Rights, and the Constitution (October 1981) Marilou McPhedran fonds, Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, York University, 2007-020_002_09
Throughout the final months of 1980, CACSW, NAC, and NAWL presented briefs to the Joint House Committee on the Constitution. These groups were largely aligned in their criticism of the Charter: NAWL opened their presentation by stating emphatically that “we cannot and do not endorse the entrenchment of a Charter as poorly articulated and substantively inadequate as this one.”[21] Originally titled “Non-Discrimination Rights” in the federal government’s Charter proposal, NAWL argued that section 15 should set an affirmative standard as opposed to one of negation. Furthermore, they argued, “The value-charged word ‘discrimination’ implies something bad. Much of the discrimination which offends women may be fairly described as paternal benevolence.”[22] Recalling the SCC cases Bliss and Lavell, NAWL suggested that the phrase “Everyone has the right to equality before the law and to the equal protection of the law” be changed to include “before and under the law” and “equal benefit of the law.”[23]
Women of NAWL on the steps of the Supreme Court of Canada (c. 1975-1985) NAWL fonds, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa, 10-036-S8-F4-I1
While the federal government assented to these edits of section 15, many feminist groups felt that the Charter remained inadequate. In their own presentations to the Special Joint Committee, the NAC and CACSW argued that the Charter’s reasonable limitations clause should be replaced by a purpose clause, an affirmation of the Charter’s intention to protect human rights. “A top priority for CACSW,” according to Froc, “was to ensure that section 15 was strong enough to avoid the US problems with sex equality being considered a ‘second class guarantee’ under an approach adopting tiered levels of scrutiny for discrimination.”[24] CACSW also worried that the Charter’s section 27, which mandates interpretation “in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians,” could nullify section 15’s protections against sex discrimination.[25]
It is for this reason that CACSW, under President Doris Anderson, planned to host a national conference on Women and the Constitution that would allow women from across Canada to meet, discuss, and vote on resolutions together. Initially scheduled for the fall of 1980, the conference was postponed to February due to a Parliamentary translators’ strike. In January 1981, however, Anderson publicly announced her resignation from the Council presidency. CACSW’s Executive had voted to cancel the conference. Directly following this meeting, Anderson’s surprise resignation set off a media firestorm that became known as the “Anderson-Axworthy affair.”
Various telegrams expressing support for Doris Anderson (January 1981) NAC fonds, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa, 10-024-S10-F2
Various telegrams expressing support for Doris Anderson (January 1981) NAC fonds, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa, 10-024-S10-F2
Various telegrams expressing support for Doris Anderson (January 1981) NAC fonds, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa, 10-024-S10-F2
By way of explanation, Anderson cited Axworthy’s inappropriate exertion of influence over CACSW, which had always been an autonomous agency. As reported by Anderson and confirmed in meeting minutes taken by Secretary Shelley-Ann Clark, many on the CACSW Executive had voted for cancellation because of Axworthy. Earlier that day, Axworthy had told the Executive that a conference on women and the constitution “would be an embarrassment to the government.”[26] Of course, there are many differing accounts from CACSW members over this incident, and historians have debated whether Axworthy genuinely exerted his influence over the cancellation; whether Anderson’s remarks were unfair toward the Minister; and whether women even needed their own national conference to secure sex equality in the Charter. Nevertheless, as reported by FWTAO member Ada Hill, women were angry in January 1981.
Almost immediately following the notice of cancellation, women began to organize. Around 18-20 women gathered at Toronto’s Cow Café to plan their next steps. This meeting included, among others, the FWTAO’s Ada Hill; first NAC President Laura Sabia; former NAC President Kay McPherson; archivist Moira Armour; Linda Ryan-Nye and Margaret Bryce of Women for Political Action (WPA); Illa Driever of the Women’s Halton Action Movement (WHAM); Mary Corkery and Susan VanderVoet from the Canadian Congress of Learning Opportunities for Women (CCLOW); Shelagh Wilkinson of the Canadian Women Studies Journal; Nancy Ruth [Jackman] of the Ontario Committee for the Status of Women (OCSW); and the Feminist Party of Canada’s Janka Seydegart.[27] It was here that they decided the conference would go ahead, with or without government support; and the Ad Hoc Committee of Women on the Constitution was formed.
These women had three weeks to organize a conference in Ottawa from the ground up, with no funding and almost no time for preparation. Nancy Ruth’s post-conference report describes the frenzied and exciting nature of their planning:
What I saw was a group of committed women who wanted to show the government that they couldn’t always get their way and that we women could and would take responsibility for making what we wanted happen. There was a tremendous amount of energy around the table, and people were committing themselves to doing this, contacting that person, organizing this, etc… I didn’t know how to fit in as my skills were in the area of educational design and creative brainstorming… but I had an answering machine which Illa needed!
The answering machine was my first contribution! I learned early in the process that you do the work yourself. Somehow, I had expected that offering the machine was enough, and that someone would come and pick it up… but that’s not the way that this conference was going to work.[28]
Per Nancy Ruth and many other Ad Hockers, each small contribution assisted in pulling the conference together.
Ottawa-based women were quickly brought into the fold and hosted a meeting two days after receiving calls from women at the Cow Café. This Ottawa group included Pat Hacker and Jan Frizell of the Women’s Career Counselling Services (WCCS) network; lawyers Marilou McPhedran and Shirley Greenberg; Rosemary Billings and Jill Porter of the NAC; feminist author Heather Menzies; Kris Furlought, Susan Phillips, Jan Mears, Carol Armatage, and Lisa Nemetz of the Ottawa Women’s Lobby (OWL); and Jane Pope from the Ottawa Women’s Credit Union (OWCU). Additionally, several women attended who had not been politically active before: Vaughn Jeliffe, Gail Anthony, Patricia Webb, and Janice Tait.[29] Fittingly, the symbol of the conference was the butterfly, which some Conference participants interpreted as a symbol of women’s “coming of age politically.”[30] Many of these volunteers worked 16-hour days until the conference weekend.[31]
The informal women’s liberation network was crucial to organizing the Ad Hoc Conference on Women and the Constitution, and post-conference records show that 65% of the conference’s funding came from private donations.[32] The Ad Hockers also received support inside Parliament for their use of government telephones and copy machines, and made use of insider contacts including Status of Women coordinator Maureen O’Neill and MPs Flora MacDonald, Pauline Jewett, and Margaret Mitchell, among others. When interviewed by ARCS in 2024, Hacker explained that the RCMP once showed up at her doorstep to question her because the monthly telephone bill for O'Neill's office had increased from roughly $500 overnight.[33]
Right: Women’s Workshop – Women’s Constitutional Conference Project, “Financial Statement February 1, 1981 – June 25, 1981,” Marilou McPhedran fonds, Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, York University, 2007-020/002(09)
Additionally, said Hacker, the Ad Hockers developed solidarity with the women administrative workers in Parliament: “The secretaries, or I should say the female staff, would photocopy [for us], and they would go up and down the elevators so that too many copies didn’t show up on a single photocopy machine... they would photocopy some on every floor in order to get the copies we were needing without causing the same problem that Maureen O’Neill had, with an excessive number of copies that couldn't be explained.”[34]
The Ad Hockers were expecting 200-300 conference registrants; in the end, 1300 women came to Parliament to discuss the Constitution.[35] And although the conference was originally scheduled to end just before dinner, women did not finish debating and voting on resolutions until 10:45 pm.[36] Clearly, women had an extensive diversity of opinions on the Charter. Some women felt that they did not support an entrenched Charter at all; this was particularly true of women associated with the Progressive Conservatives, and partisan debates ensued.[37] Others felt that the conference placed gender above other forms of racial discrimination, including the specific oppression experienced by Black and immigrant women.[38]
Other resolutions were tabled due to lack of understanding among majority white participants. For example, although many attendees supported the repeal of section 12(1)(b) of the Indian Act, some expressed discomfort at a broader resolution proposed by Marlene Pierre-Agammaway of the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC). Pierre-Agammaway asked the conference to support NWAC’s “struggles on behalf of all Native women,” until “the aboriginal rights of the aboriginal peoples are affirmed, protected and enshrined in such a way that those rights are beyond the control, influence, altering or amending of any other government save the Indian government.”[39] While women of the NWAC viewed Indigenous sovereignty as paramount for the emancipation of Indigenous women, other attendees were focused more narrowly on section 12(1)(b).[40]
Despite at times heated disagreement and debate taking place simultaneously in three separate conference rooms, attendees were able to pass and agree on a multitude of resolutions:
- That a statement of purpose should be added to clause 1 guaranteeing that the rights and freedoms of the Charter are guaranteed equally to male and female persons
- That clause 7 be amended to include the right to reproductive freedom and the right to equality of economic opportunity
- That the list of prohibited grounds for discrimination in clause 15 be amended to include: 1) marital status, 2) sexual orientation, and 3) political belief
- That affirmative action programs under clause 15 should apply only to disadvantaged groups as listed under clause 15 and not to individuals
- Use of the word person/personne throughout the charter, as opposed to words like “individual” which had not yet been legally defined [41]
The conference’s first resolution, the “purpose clause,” was eventually enshrined in the Charter as section 28. Ultimately, the conference achieved its goal of gathering women from across the country to discuss the Charter and its implications for sex equality. But the Ad Hockers still had a long way to go before making their mark on the Constitution, and political deals took place behind the scenes that put their hard-earned sex equality clause at risk. Throughout the remainder of 1981, the Ad Hoc Committee tirelessly lobbied politicians and activated formerly dormant branches of a national women’s network to secure section 28.
Part III
"Notwithstanding Anything in this Charter"
Women lawyers and women inside Parliament across all political parties were crucial to the Ad Hoc conference and the women’s lobby that followed. Feminist lawyer Marilou McPhedran, now Senator McPhedran, was one of the most influential leaders of the Ad Hoc Committee of Canadian Women on the Constitution especially for her contribution to the Charter’s language. The conference could not have gone forward without advice and support from Pauline Jewett (NDP), Margaret Mitchell (NDP), and Flora MacDonald (PC). Maureen O'Neill of Status of Women Canada similarly supported the conference from within a federal institution. These women often go unrecognized for their role in shaping the Charter. Also crucial were the contributions of women’s coalitions including NAWL and NAC, who were able to plug into a vast women’s network to disseminate information quickly and efficiently.
In March 1981, one month after the Ad Hoc Conference of Canadian Women on the Constitution, the conference’s resolutions were strongly endorsed by the National Action Committee on the Status of Women and its 160 member groups. Reporting on her experience with the Ad Hoc Committee, Kay McPherson wrote about the group’s ability to maintain momentum throughout 1981:
One of the most impressive aspects of the conference was the immediate assumption that an exhaustive follow-up process was an absolute necessity. All women’s groups and individuals who were reachable had to be informed, and MPs and officials lobbied intensively. The paperwork and footwork that this involves isn’t always appreciated by those who attend conferences. It’s great to pass resolutions, reach consensus, take united action and all the rest. But someone has to pick up the pieces and ensure that all the effort and excitement are transmitted to where it will most be felt – to the politicians.[42]
Plenty of political lobbying took place in the months immediately following the conference, and the Ad Hockers received significant advice from the women support staff on Parliament Hill. According to Linda Ryan-Nye, women staff members gave the Ad Hockers “a ‘how to’ training session on meeting with ministers in about 15 minutes.”[43] Committee members also used advertising campaigns to gain support from the public, including mail-out questionnaires for women to survey their MPs, and newspaper cut-out “coupons” that were mailed to Justice Minister Jean Chretien.[44] By April 1981, the group had achieved all-party support for their “statement-of-purpose” clause (though it became section 28 rather than section 1) and established the section’s strong legal wording: “Notwithstanding anything in this Charter, the rights and freedoms referred to in it are guaranteed equally to male and female persons.”[45]
Reflections by the Ad Hoc Committee emphasize their strong network of support among women of all political stripes. Marilou McPhedran has credited Progressive Conservative staffer Ann Harris for the Ad Hockers’ strategy of flitting in and out of Parliament without arousing suspicion:
Something had changed in my status so that I wasn’t feeling as confident, and I said to her, ‘Am I going to have a problem?’ and she said, ‘Have you had a problem so far? Has anyone asked for your identification?’ And I said, ‘Well I guess maybe when I went up to the desk.’ And she said, ‘Well, you’ve been kind of coming and going, and look around you – what’s happening here?’ And I said, ‘Right, like these women are just coming and going, and nobody’s stopping them, and they all have, you know, they have like sweater sets, they look like secretaries, they look like staff.’ And she just kind of smiled. So, I remember taking that back to the group in Ottawa and saying, ‘We have to dress like secretaries. And I have this steno pad; we all need steno pads. And we’re going to carry steno pads, and we now know our way around, and we’re just going to walk like we know where we’re going, head down, and we’re just going to go where we need to go.’ And that’s what we did. And it worked.[46]
This is how the Ad Hockers delivered “butterfly invitations” to various MPs as they entered the House of Commons in late April 1981. The invitations, emblazoned with the conference’s butterfly logo, noted that women “were pleased by the response to our representations resulting in all-party agreement to support the crucial statement-of-purpose clause” but were concerned that its sentiments “have not yet been reflected substantively in other clauses of the Charter.”[47] As such, they invited MPs to “strengthen further the Charter with respect to women’s equality,” noting that “we will be watching closely in the days ahead to see how you respond to the needs of Canadian women.”[48]
In June 1981, the Ad Hockers received results from a survey that they had mailed to conference participants. Emphasizing the importance of the informal women’s network, roughly half of all participants had heard about the conference either from a friend or a women’s organization. Moreover, despite the mainstream media’s attention to the “Anderson-Axworthy Affair” and corresponding lack of attention to women’s constitutional issues, nearly 60% of attendees were motivated to go to Ottawa because of “concern about the equality of women in the Charter of Rights” and far fewer noted that their motivations involved either anger at Axworthy or support for Anderson.[49] Significantly, nearly 100% of respondents learned something new about the Constitution and later shared that information through informal discussions with friends, family, and colleagues. Finally, over 80% of respondents noted that they felt free to fully contribute to conference proceedings, and that they were happy with the Ad Hockers’ lobbying efforts.
Participants were also invited to respond at length to question 6, which asked “what impact has the conference had on you personally?” The following images depict a selection of their responses:
As demonstrated here, the conference managed to reinvigorate activist women’s faith in political organizing and to plug non-activist women into a network of people concerned about sex equality in the Constitution. The range of responses illustrates the breadth of conference participants in terms of their political involvement: from those who were deeply familiar with legislative processes to those who were “amazed that so many professional women exist in Canada.”[50] Of course, some women did not have an entirely positive experience, making note of the conference’s majority white audience and resulting lack of attention to racial oppression. One wrote, for example, that she was “shocked by the ignorance and dreadful response of some participants to the speaker from [Native Women’s Association of Canada.]”[51] Nevertheless, such opinions are a mark of the conference’s success at bringing women together and encouraging them to think deeply about the new Charter of Rights and its implications for Indigenous women and other racialized groups.
New networks created through the Ad Hoc conference came in handy during the Fall of 1981, when an early November meeting between the Prime Minister and provincial premiers placed the conference’s major accomplishment at risk of a nullifying override clause. The addition of section 33, known as the “notwithstanding clause,” allows any level of government to override Charter rights. This clause was the only way that federal Liberals were able to get provincial premiers on board with the new Constitution. Even though section 28 was intended to guide the courts vis-à-vis their interpretation of the Charter as a whole, on November 9th the Prime Minister announced that section 33 could be used to override section 28.[52]
Once again, women were angry. And once again, they mobilized national women’s networks to publicize section 33’s threat to sex equality in the Charter. The Ad Hockers and other national women’s organizations were opposed to section 33 in its entirety; however, they focused their energies primarily on rescuing section 28 from the override.[53] Exhausted from their nearly year-long lobbying efforts, Ad Hockers activated their connections with NAC, NAWL, the Canadian Congress of Learning Opportunities for Women (CCLOW), and the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW), all of which had active provincial chapters across the country.[54] The pressure was intense, and the Ad Hockers had very little time before the federal government planned to introduce the accord into the House.
Women across the country were asked to send as many telegram messages as possible to their federal MPs. According to author Penny Kome’s narration of November 1981 in The Taking of 28, when one of the Ad Hockers began dictating her message, the telegram operator stopped her and said “I know what it says. Just tell me where it’s going. We’ve handled thousands of these telegrams today.”[55] On top of that, in response to an article published by Toronto Star journalist Michele Landsberg, hundreds of letters and donations began pouring into the Ad Hoc mailbox:
According to Kome, politicians were stunned by the extent of women’s anger and their sense of political betrayal.
Initially failing in their efforts to lobby Ottawa bureaucrats, the Ad Hockers decided they should take their fight directly to each provincial premier. Given women’s focused effort on section 28, their messaging was difficult for politicians to work around: none of the premiers wanted notoriety for opposing women’s equality rights. Ultimately, women’s pressure tactics worked, and within seven days the Justice Minister announced that section 33’s “notwithstanding clause” could not be applied to section 28.[56] In some ways, this was a clear victory for the Ad Hockers and the informal women’s network. However, this victory was qualified by the fact that the Ad Hockers’ other resolutions were not fully implemented, and the section 33 override remained.
Succinctly phrased by Linda Ryan-Nye, section 28 was “a helluva lot to lose… but it was not a helluva lot to win.”[57] The 1980s would see massive changes to women’s status and participation in judicial and political institutions in Canada, due in part to the proven strength of women’s organizations and new protections in the Charter. However, some legal scholars argue that Canadian courts have neglected or misinterpreted the true meaning of section 28.
Conclusion
Women's Legal Status, then and now
Beverley Baines, a professor of public and constitutional law whom the Ad Hockers worked with back in 1981, wrote the following in 2005: “To date, several provincial appellate courts have recognized the importance of an effective constitutional guarantee of sex equality for women. However, the Supreme Court of Canada seems oblivious. Despite two Charter provisions, the court has denied every sex equality claim litigated by women.”[58] To date, the litigants in just two cases have been able to successfully claim sex discrimination: Centrale des syndicats du Québec v Quebec (Attorney General) in 2018, and Fraser v Canada (Attorney General) in 2020. In both cases, however, the courts ignored section 28 in their decision and focused largely on section 15.
As Kerri Froc argues in her PhD thesis on the untapped power of section 28, the SCC has tended to interpret section 28 as superfluous to section 15, sidelining the intentions of its feminist framers:
Conference delegates saw the place of the Conference as extraordinary and their role in constitution-building as historic. They wanted to “effect change” in the Charter that would result in nothing less than reflecting transformation in the “societal perception of the role of women,” in other words, a new subjectivity grounded in women’s status as equal bearers of civil rights. They saw themselves as engaging in a “imaginative… innovative… alternative exercise” of developing a “new feminist human concept of what rights were all about,” and a “purpose clause that represents the aspirations of Canadian people” was seen as an intrinsic part of that enterprise.[59]
While an analysis of the various interpretive frameworks for section 28 is beyond the scope of this exhibit, more work must be done to secure the transformative potential of the Charter that Ad Hockers imagined in 1981.
The defunding and dormancy of national women’s organizations (including NAC) has dealt a strong blow to the goal of women’s substantive equality, though some including the National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL) and the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW) remain active today. A critical outcome of the Ad Hockers advocacy was the formation of LEAF - FAEJ (Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund) by many of the Ad Hoc lawyers and activists. Founded on April 17, 1985, to coincide with the enactment of Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, LEAF is a national non-profit that has spent over 40 years fighting for gender equality. Through strategic litigation, legal interventions, and education, LEAF has won landmark cases regarding reproductive rights, sexual violence, and workplace equality.
Left: Button for LEAF (c. 1980s) CWMA Collection, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa, 10-001-S4-I266
Crucially, the Ad Hockers showed that women do not need government funding to hold their own conferences on questions of national significance and to influence federal policy. Connected now by smartphones and social media as opposed to telephones, telegrams, and newsletters, successive generations of women might forge their own feminist networks to fight back against encroaching inequality. Though Lloyd Axworthy once told women to trust that the government had their best interests at heart, Nancy Ruth’s words seem more fitting: when it comes to women’s equality, “you do the work yourself.”
Exhibit created April 2026 by Meghan Tibbits-Lamirande, Archivist, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa
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Works Cited
[1] “Section 28 – Gender Equality rights,” The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art28.html [2] “Section 15 – Equality rights,” The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art15.html [3] “The Virus of Inequality,” scheduled for April 2026, examines "how legal, social, economic, and political forces reproduce harms against women across Canada and internationally” and reflects on the evolution of legal protections for women in Canada. [4] See Beverley Baines, “Section 28 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: A Purposive Interpretation,” Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 17.1 (2005): 45-70 ; Sandra Burt, “The Charter of Rights and the Ad Hoc Lobby: The Limits of Success,” Atlantis 14.1 (1988) 74-81 ; Naomi Black and Louise Carbert, “Women Challenging the Constitution: New Evidence,” Atlantis 37.2 (2016) ; Kerri Froc, The Untapped Power of Section 28 and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Queen’s University: Ph.D. Dissertation, 2015) ; Penny Kome, The Taking of 28: Women Challenge the Constitution (Toronto: ON: The Women’s Press, 1983) ; Marilou McPhedran and Michele Landsberg, “The Fight for the Charter,” Canadian Women’s Studies 26.2 (2007): 80-84. [5] 1918 federal enfranchisement legislation included Black and white women but did not include many indigenous women. Asian women were also disenfranchised at different times throughout Canadian history. See Matthew McRae, “The Chaotic Story of the Right to Vote in Canada” (12 September 2019) The Canadian Museum of Human Rights, https://humanrights.ca/story/the-chaotic-story-of-the-right-to-vote-in-canada [6] Froc, 179. [7] McRae, https://humanrights.ca/story/the-chaotic-story-of-the-right-to-vote-in-canada [8] Froc 115-118 ; See also Robert J. Sharpe and Patricia McMahon, The Persons Case: The Origins and Legacy of the Fight for Legal Personhood (Toronto, ON : University of Toronto Press, 2007). [9] Froc, 117-118. [10] Attorney General of Canada v. Lavell, [1974] S.C.R. 1349, https://decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/5261/index.do [11] Ibid. [12] “Corbiere Lavell and Yvonne Bedard Case” (September 1973) Marjorie Griffin Cohen fonds, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa, 10-153-S1-SS2-F1 [13] Bliss v. Attorney General of Canada, [1979] 1 S.C.R. 183, https://decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/2645/index.do [14] Kome, 29. [15] Ada Hill, “A Report on the Ad Hoc Conference on Women and the Constitution, February 1981” (30 July 1981) Marilou McPhedran fonds F0514, Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, York University, 2007-020/002(08) [16] Ibid. [17] Kome, 29. [18] Ibid. [19] Kome 33-34 ; “Section 1 - Reasonable limits, The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art1.html [20] Kome 33-34. [21] National Association of Women and the Law, “Presentation to the Joint Committee on the Constitution” (December 1980) box 1, file 20, NAWL fonds, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa, 10-036-S1-F20 [22] Ibid. [23] Ibid. [24] Froc, 138 [25] Froc 9-10 ; “Section 27 – Multicultural heritage,” The Canadian Carter of Rights and Freedoms, https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art27.html [26] Meeting minutes taken by CACSW Secretary Shelley-Ann Clarke (January 1981) NAC fonds, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa, 10-024-S10-F8-I3 [27] Kome, 43. [28] Nancy Ruth Jackman, “The Ad Hoc Committee” (1981) Marilou McPhedran fonds F0514, Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, York University, 2007-020/002(08) [29] Kome, 45. [30] Froc, 234. [31] Kome, 45. [32] Women’s Workshop – Women’s Constitutional Conference Project, “Financial Statement February 1, 1981 – June 25, 1981,” Marilou McPhedran fonds F0514, Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, York University, 2007-020/002(09) [33] Meghan Tibbits-Lamirande, “The Clerical Work of Liberation: A Tribute to Women who Answered the Phone” (20 March 2024) Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa, https://www.uottawa.ca/library/news-all/clerical-work-of-liberation [34] Ibid. [35] Kome, 57. [36] “Women and the Constitution: A Conference Sponsored by Canadian Women,” Agenda (14 February 1981) Marilou McPhedran fonds F0514, Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, York University, 2007-020/002(08) [37] Kome, 57-61. [38] Froc, 256. [39] Submitted by the Native Women’s Association of Canada, “Proposed Resolutions for Discussion” (14 February 1981) Marilou McPhedran fonds F0514, Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, York University, 2007-020/002(08) [40] Froc, 256. [41] The Ad Hoc Committee of Canadian Women on the Constitution, "Resolutions Adopted at the Conference on Canadian Women and the Constitution" (14-15 February 1981) NAC fonds, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa, 10-024-S10-F39 [42] Kay McPherson, “Ad Hoc Committee… Constitutional Conference” (September 1981) Marilou McPhedran fonds F0514, Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, York University, 2007-020/002(08) [43] Froc, 239. [44] Kome, 70. [45] Kome, 75-77. [46] McPhedran qtd. in Froc, 240. [47] Ad Hoc Committee of Canadian Women, "You Are Invited..." (23 April 1981) NAC fonds, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa, 10-024-S10-F38 [48] Ibid. [49] Summary Report on Constitution Questionnaire (June 1981) NAC fonds, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa, 10-024-S10-F49 [50] Ibid. [51] Ibid. [52] Froc 213-219 ; Kome 83-87. [53] Ibid. [54] Kome, 86. [55] Kome, 92. [56] Kome, 89-95. [57] Ibid. [58] Baines, 46. [59] Froc, 236.