| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Date of Issue | August 28, 2023 |
| Year | 2023 |
| Quantity | 200,000 |
| Denomination |
 PERMANENT™ (P).Current monetary value: $0.92. |
| Series | Quebec Feminists |
| Series Time Span | 2023 |
| Postal Administration | Canada |
Montréal-born Madeleine Parent became aware of class divisions while she was a young boarder at the Villa Maria convent. As a student at McGill University, she campaigned for financial assistance for students from low-income backgrounds. She also met Léa Roback at McGill, who encouraged her involvement in union organization and became a mentor and long-time friend.
In 1942, Parent’s future husband, Kent Rowley, recruited her to help organize unionization for 6,000 Dominion Textile workers under the banner of the United Textile Workers of America in Quebec. In the mid-1940s, Parent and Rowley led worker strikes in Montréal, Salaberry-de-Valleyfield and Lachute, Quebec. After then-Premier Maurice Duplessis declared the Lachute strike illegal, Parent was accused of being a communist and charged with seditious conspiracy. Her conviction was later overturned on a technicality.
Parent didn’t waver. She and Rowley went on to establish the Canadian Textile and Chemical Union in 1952 and the Confederation of Canadian Unions in 1969. She remained a staunch advocate of pay equity and was a founding member of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, where she represented Quebec for eight years. She also defended Indigenous women’s rights, including supporting Mary Two-Axe Earley and Mary Pitawanakwat and their fights against discrimination.
“Madeleine confronted the three powers – economic power, political power and the power of the clergy. And she was ostracized, literally,” says Monique Simard, a long-time friend. “She was a trade unionist, but also a declared feminist long before it became the movement we know.”
For decades, Quebec women have been at the forefront of women’s and workers’ rights and the fight to redress social and economic inequalities in their province. While the movement for women’s rights continues, the work of three Canadian women stands apart.
The new stamp issue highlights the lives and achievements of three Quebec women who were lifelong advocates for workers’ and women’s rights and other causes: Léa Roback, Madeleine Parent and Simonne Monet-Chartrand. Their activism foreshadowed many of the advancements made in equality and justice in Canada.