Which province was the first to grant voting rights to women in 1916?

Discover Canada records this in a single direct sentence: In 1916, Manitoba became the first province to grant voting rights to women. The province the test wants is therefore Manitoba, and the year is 1916.

The 1916 milestone is part of the wider women's suffrage movement that Discover Canada places in its democratic-history chapter. The guide says "at the time of Confederation, the vote was limited to property-owning adult white males," and that the suffrage movement was founded in this country by Dr. Emily Stowe, "the first Canadian woman to practise medicine in Canada." Manitoba's 1916 reform is the first concrete provincial result of that movement.

The wave kept moving. Discover Canada writes: In 1917, thanks to the leadership of women such as Dr. Stowe and other suffragettes, the federal government of Sir Robert Borden gave women the right to vote in federal elections — first to nurses at the battle front, then to women who were related to men in active wartime service. Then "in 1918, most Canadian female citizens aged 21" and over got the vote federally. So Manitoba's 1916 reform led directly into wartime and post-war federal extensions.

Manitoba's role as a first is consistent with its earlier place in Discover Canada's expansion timeline. The guide says "Canada established a new province: Manitoba" in 1870, after the Red River resistance. From its creation to 1916, the province moved from a Métis-led uprising to becoming the first to extend the vote to women — a striking arc.

The question is testing whether new citizens have remembered the precise province Discover Canada credits with this 1916 first. The guide names exactly one — Manitoba — and pairs the year (1916) and the achievement (first province to grant women the vote) in the same sentence.

The wrong answer choices each appear in Discover Canada in different roles. Ontario is the post-1867 home of the country's largest population. Quebec is the heart of French-speaking Canada. British Columbia joined Canada in 1871 after Ottawa promised to build the CPR. None of those provinces is named in the guide as the first to extend the vote to women — that honour belongs to Manitoba.