100 years ago, city elected its first female councillor
Izena Ross looks out from the frame of the undated black-andwhite photograph, her eyes behind a pair of round, dark-rimmed glasses.
Her expression is neutral.
She wears a fur collar and a necklace with a large jewel, her hair in a wavy bob.
The image is one of the few surviving photos of the first woman to serve on Edmonton city council.
Elected in 1921, Ross served a single, yearlong term and has been largely forgotten.
The only public recognition of her historic achievement is a sliver of green space on Fort Road officially called Izena Ross Park.
One hundred years after Ross's election — and months before Edmonton's next civic contest — a group of women are using Ross's story to highlight the long-standing gender imbalance at Edmonton city hall.
Ross is one of just 31 women to have been elected to Edmonton city council in the city's history, said Katherine O'neill, CEO of YWCA Edmonton.
Only one woman, Jan Reimer, has ever been mayor.
Municipal voters have never elected an Indigenous woman or a woman of colour.
Only two of Edmonton's current 12 councillors are women.
Last February, O'neill was headed to an event hosted by Parity YEG, a group focused on gender parity in politics. “I remember thinking to myself, `I've been around this city a long time ... who was the first female councillor?' ” O'neill said in an interview. “And so I just do this simple Google search. And like, really, nothing comes up about this woman.
“I realized quite quickly, a lot of people didn't know this story.”
Next week, Parity YEG, the YWCA and current and former councillors begin a yearlong campaign called the Searching for Izena Project, which will document the history of female representation at city hall in a monthly podcast.
O'neill began their ongoing research into Ross's story last year, and found little in the city archives.
As far as she can tell, Ross has no surviving family or descendants.
She eventually turned up a photo of Ross in the Edmonton Public School Board archive.
“The city didn't have one, the city archive didn't have one, the Alberta archive didn't have an original photo of her.”
Ross ran with the goal of “putting women's issues and girl's issues on the agenda at city hall,” O'neill eventually learned. She was one of three women to run in 1921 — shortly after white women won the right to vote in Alberta. Ross was the only woman to win her seat.
One of the earliest stories about Ross's time on council dealt with worries among male aldermen that they wouldn't be allowed to smoke in the presence of a lady. It appears Ross obliged them. A newspaper headline from her term reads: “City Fathers Still Retain Ancient Right: Smoking in Committee of Whole Continues by Permission of Mrs. Ross.”
Ultimately, Ross wasn't able to leave much of a mark. She lost reelection in 1922. She later served as a school trustee, and died in 1945.
Relatively few women have followed in Ross's footsteps.
One is Olivia Butti, who at 82 is Edmonton's oldest surviving councillor. She served from 1974 to 1986.
In an interview, Butti said she became interested in politics after founding the community league in her neighbourhood, Rosslyn.
The two issues that first interested her were public safety and transportation — particularly a troublesome railway crossing near her community.
Butti initially didn't expect to win her first race — she ran to generate name recognition ahead of a run the following election, by which time her kids would be out of school. Instead, she was elected, which forced her to juggle council responsibilities with raising a family. “This is why I think a lot of women don't run,” she said.
Eventually Butti served on the council that launched the first LRT line. She was on the police commission and played a role in establishing a Crime Stoppers program.
“It's a very gratifying experience, knowing you can do something to make it a better place,” she said.
O'neill hopes by telling the stories of people like Ross and Butti, other women will be encouraged to run for council.
She said the aim is to produce a document for the city that will chart the history of women on council and identify barriers to gender parity — with a special focus on women from communities that have never been elected to council.
“We're a city of more than one million people and representation matters,” she said. “When you have a council that looks like the city you're representing, you're going to have better decisions, you're going to have better outcomes.”
Alberta's next municipal elections are scheduled for Oct. 18, 2021.