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It was in 1966, the heyday of feminism, that suffragette, politician and, later, senator Thérèse Casgrain founded the Fédération des femmes du Québec to advance equality between men and women. Over the years, the FFQ fought for equal pay, maternity leave, child care and many of the rights all women in Quebec enjoy today.

Now, the organization is ailing.

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Born in 1896, Casgrain might have seemed an unlikely feminist activist. Her father was knighted French-Canadian lawyer, business tycoon and Conservative MP Sir Rodolphe Forget. She was raised in a Golden Square Mile mansion and spent summers at the family’s 17-bedroom “cottage” in Charlevoix, where her father built the Manoir Richelieu.

Casgrain first made her name in 1921 by leading a 19-year-long battle for women’s right to vote in Quebec; her opponents included the Roman Catholic Church. In 1946, she joined the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), forerunner of the NDP. Later, she became the first woman to be elected leader of a political party in Canada, the Quebec branch of the CCF. She ran several times for Parliament, unsuccessfully.