Winnipeg men clubs told to get with times

WINNIPEG • A former chair of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce says it’s about time that men- only clubs open their doors to women.

Jodi Moskal, an electrician who also ran for the provincial Progressive Conservatives in a byelection last year, has been researching clubs in Winnipeg that once allowed only men but changed to admit women.

During her work, she found the Winnipeg Squash Racquet Club continues to ban women as members, as it has done since opening in 1909. When she posted the finding on Twitter, one person suggested i t was Moskal’s fault for missing out because “your husband could of joined.”

“It’s 2018,” Moskal said. “I don’t need my husband’s permission to get a credit card anymore.

“I shouldn’ t have to be tied to my husband. I shouldn’t have to have a husband. What if I had a wife? What if I was single?”

Moskal said she’s OK with a men’s club that’s just for sports, but a professional club that’s only for men puts businesswomen at a disadvantage, she suggested.

The club’s website said it is one of the remaining few private men- only clubs in Canada.

“Sorry Ladies, Men Only,” the website also read, but both of those references were removed Monday.

A photo on the site shows four men wearing sport jackets and toasting with whisky glasses.

In addition to squash courts, billiards, a tanning bed and a steam room, the club touts its networking opportunities.

“Many of our members have found new business partnership opportunities, and our younger members have received job offers and built new friendships that will last a lifetime,” it boasts on its website.

The squash club’s board of directors said in an emailed statement that while it has some coed tournaments and events that include women, “we are prevented from converting this coed status to a permanent, year-round basis … based on the tight confines of our present location.”

It’s the same reason former Winnipeg mayor Susan Thompson said she was given when she was told she couldn’t be a member of the club more than 30 years ago.

Thompson had taken over her family’s city saddlery business but said she was refused memberships to various business clubs. At the Carlton Club, she was listed as an associate and could only attend with her father. She could have lunch at the Manitoba Club, but had to use the side door.