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Heritage Matters 3 Canadian suffragists at the end of the 19th century held national and international meetings, lobbied, circulated petitions and worked with male politicians who supported the cause. Ally Liberal John Waters, MPP of Middlesex North, introduced nine bills in favour of women's suffrage from 1885-93. Suffragists also held mock parliaments, theatrical parodies that assumed that women had always held the right to vote and men were seeking enfranchisement. One such performance was held at the Horticultural Gardens in Toronto (now Allan Gardens) on February 18, 1896. Sonia Leathes was a NCWC member who wrote a number of pamphlets advocating women's suffrage, including "Where and How May Canadian Women Vote" (1911) and "What Equal Suffrage has Accomplished" (1911-12). In February 1914, University Magazine published "Votes of Women: Speech Given to the National Council of Women of Canada:" "Where women are not electors, parliament is not responsible to women, and their interests and wishes are not directly represented. Even when legislation is passed affecting the special interests of women … such laws are dealt with entirely as seems best to the representatives of the male electorate, and in no case are the women themselves consulted." National Council of Women group photograph at Rideau Hall, Ottawa. Photo: Topley Studio/Library and Archives Canada/PA-028034. "… their Lordships have come to the conclusion that the word 'persons' in sec. 24 includes members both of the male and female sex and that, therefore, the question propounded by the Governor-General must be answered in the affirmative and that women are eligible to be summoned to and become members of the Senate of Canada, and they will humbly advise His Majesty accordingly." Lord Sankey, L.C., Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, Edwards v. Attorney General of Canada, 1930