In honour of Mothers Day, we thought it
appropriate to focus this month’s Canada
Matters on some facts about Maple Leaf
mamas and motherhood here in the Great
White North.
Lotsa mommas
At the time of the 2011 Census of Population, there were 9.8
million moms with children under 18 in Canada - including
bio, adoptive and step. More than a third of them lived in
Ontario.
Famous Five
This group of five Alberta women asked the Supreme Court in
1927: Does the word ‘persons’ in the British North America
Act include women? Prior to this, women could not be
appointed to the Senate. It took the Privy Council in 1929 to
overtunr the Supreme Court’s answer of ‘No.” The Famous
Five were:
Emily Murphy
Irene Marryat Parlby
Nellie Mooney McClung
Louise Crummy McKinney
Henrietta Muir Edwards
They are commemorated every year on October 18 - Persons
Day - and are the subject of a well-known outdoor sculpture
on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
Mat leave
In 2011, a whopping seventy-seven per cent of Canadian
moms with children under a year old had insurable
employment that entitled them to maternity and/or parental
leave. Canada’s maternal and paternal benefits remain among
the most generous in the world - those with insurable
employment are generally eligible for up to approximately
10-12 months of time off and/or government benefits.And the
federal government recently announced they would introduce
legislation that could extend benefits to 18 months in some
circumestances.
Mothers Day
Canadians celebrate their moms on the second Sunday in May.
Typical gifts and outings include flowers, chocolate, brunch or
afternoon tea. A 2016 Globe and
Mail article indicated that
Canadians spend around
$100 on their mothers
for Mothers day. And in
2014, Canadian greenhouse
produced 317 million cut
flowers - many of which
were given to a mom.
Necessity, moms and inventions
We already know Canadians are an ingenius bunch. And
Canadian women have invented some pretty useful things: the
WEEVAC, an emergency stretcher for infants and small
children; the Jolly Jumper; Robeez (soft-soled baby shoes); the
use of forensic pathology. And Pablum, that parenting
mainstay, while credited to three male Canadian doctors,
couldn’t have done it without the help of their nutrition
laboratory technician Ruth Herbert.