As the above chart shows, women in Canada have come a
long, long way since their beginnings in the CA profession. To gain a true
perspective on how far women have come in the profession, it’s enlightening to
look back — way back — to 1922, when Mercy Ellen Crehan and Florence Eulalie
Herkins became the first women to be admitted to membership. It seems the
welcome was not exactly glorious: in the June 1966 issue of
CAmagazine (then
called
The Canadian Chartered Accountant), FCA and former federal MP Ellen
Fairclough wrote that one of the women “found it necessary to ‘defect’ to the
United States to earn a living in her chosen profession.”
Over the next decades, the number of women in the profession
grew ever so slowly. As Steve Brearton wrote in “A century of CAmagazine”
(June/July 2011), “Even the opportunities afforded women during the Second
World War to demonstrate their obvious competence barely opened doors.” By
1966, there were still only 125 women members — a situation that Fairclough
bemoaned. “[The number] leaves much to be desired, particularly when there is
such a demand, even an urgent need, to fill the vacancies which appear to be
increasing in number in the profession. The question arises whether the
profession is to be deprived of the services of qualified people because of
age-old prejudices and inhibitions.”
By the mid-1970s, things were slowly starting to move. In
1976, Pamela Jermey became the first woman to garner top marks on the Uniform
Final Examination (UFE). And in 1979, women took all three top spots on the UFE
honour role. In a January 1980
CAmagazine editorial, Nelson Luscombe wrote, “There’s
every indication that [women’s] presence will continue to increase, both in
numbers and significance.” He cited an article in the same issue predicting
that females would begin to be appointed to partnership in the early 1980s and
that by the end of the first decade of the next century, the proportion “should
reach 30%.” That last prediction did not come true. Is it time to make another?
