Group wants statue to pay tribute to political pioneer
There are calls for a bronze statue to be erected in tribute to a trailblazing Calgary politician, Annie Gale, who fought to improve access to health care and affordable food when she was first elected to city council a century ago.
Gale served three terms on council, starting in 1917. Sunday marked 100 years since the day she was elected the first female alderman in Canada.
“It seems to me Calgary ought to commemorate the first woman to serve on any city council in Canada with something like a bronze,” says Nancy Janovicek, a University of Calgary history professor and chair of the Annie Gale Project.
“I also think we need to think about why so few women have run (since).”
Janovicek says she got the inspiration for the project amid the disappointing aftermath of the 2013 municipal election, when the count of women on city council went from four to two.
“In that moment, I was feeling a little bit not optimistic,” she says. “I just wondered how we’d lost two good women who had proven themselves to be capable (and) why so few women were putting themselves forward.”
When Gale ran for office, she faced threats that left her family fearing for her safety and the judgment of a public largely hostile to seeing a woman with young children assuming a role in public life, Janovicek says.
The 2017 municipal election saw one new woman elected to council, Jyoti Gondek, raising the total to three.
“These commemorations help us to see the parallels between the difficulties that the very first generation of women who ran faced and what women still face,” she says.
“And it remind us that we have to hold on to the hope of those pioneers who were advancing women’s rights.”
The group behind the Annie Gale Project is in the process of applying for charitable status. The group hopes to hold a fundraiser in the new year to support the creation of a bronze statue they hope will find a home at Calgary’s municipal plaza.