Human+Rights+Quiz

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Human Rights Quiz How did you do? Below are the original questions followed by the answer and the explanation. # 1 - On January 1, 1919 white Canadian women were given the right to vote in federal elections. While women were not officially denied the vote prior to Confederation, it was rare they ever did. However, while people were celebrating the birth of our nation on July 1, 1867, women were legally excluded from voting. Six provinces gave women the right to vote in their provinces before the federal government did. What was the first province? Manitoba - Saskatchewan - Ontario - Quebec // Manitoba  // // The mostly upper-class women involved in the early days of Canada’s women’s movement viewed universal suffrage (the vote) as a tool to strengthen good, Protestant values in Canada. Their fight, of course, was a lengthy one, and led to a patchwork of results. After years of battles with Manitoba politicians, suffragettes like Nellie McClung – a long-time Manitoban and member of the Women’s Christian Temperance – could celebrate. On January 28, 1916, the government of Manitoba amended the Election Act, finally granting women the right to vote. Of the provinces, Manitoba was the first and Quebec was the last, in 1940. //   # 2 - On January 31, 1958 James Gladstone was sworn in as Canada’s first Aboriginal senator. Even though Senator Gladstone was one of a very few people making decisions about laws in Canada, there was one thing he could not do, by law, during the first two years of his term. What was it he couldn’t do? Own property - Go to university - Vote in federal elections

// Vote in provincial elections // // James Gladstone’s aboriginal name was Akay Namuka, which translates to “Many Guns.” Born May 21, 1887 near Mountain Hill, Northwest Territories, he was a member of the Blood Reserve in Alberta. In 1949, he became president of the Indian Association of Alberta, where he was credited by some with bringing the federal vote to Treaty Indians in 1960. In 1957, newly elected Prime Minister John Diefenbaker made good on his pledge to appoint an Indian to Canada’s Upper Chamber by tapping Gladstone for the Senate. During his time in the Senate, Gladstone worked to create a better life for aboriginal people. Ironically, due to his First Nations status, he was denied the ability to vote in federal elections. Gladstone retired from the Senate on March 3, 1971 and died six months later at the age of 84. //   # 3 - On February 26, 1942 Canada’s minister of justice ordered the removal of all people of “the Japanese race” from the “protected area” of the Pacific coastline. Altogether 21,000 Japanese Canadians were displaced, with their property and valuables confiscated. Right after Japan surrendered to the Allied forces in 1945 the Canadian government did what? - Gave their property back - Compensated people for confiscated property - Apologized - Sent thousands home to Japan // Sent thousands home to Japan // // The moment Japanese pilots bombed Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, the Canadian government stepped up actions against Canadians of Japanese descent. The displacement had Japanese Canadians transported to areas at least 160 kilometres inland, to internment camps. After the war the government sent thousands of these Canadians “home” to Japan – a country in which many had never lived. Eventually, the outrage of churches and labour groups put an end to the process. However, it would take until 1988 before the Canadian government would apologize for its actions. //   # 4 - On March 15, 1990 Canada’s Solicitor General Pierre Cadieux made an announcement about the uniforms of the RCMP which upset a number of Canadians. What was that change? - Women could wear skirts - Sikhs could wear turbans - Men didn’t have to wear ties - New colours to the uniform // Sikhs could wear turbans // // Baltej Singh Dhillon trained to be an officer with the RCMP, but as a baptized Sikh, was required to wear a turban as a tenet of his religion. This precluded him from wearing the hat that formed part of the RCMP’s ceremonial uniform. Dhillon challenged the regulation – an act that generated severe criticism, petitions, court challenges and even a death threat. On March 15, 1990, Canada’s Solicitor General Pierre Cadieux announced that Sikhs in the RCMP were welcome to wear their turbans and other religious symbols as part of their uniform. Dhillon became an RCMP officer with the city of Surrey, B.C. // # 5 - March 29, 1993 was the first time a Canadian province elected a woman premier. What province elected this woman? - Prince Edward Island - Quebec - Manitoba - British Columbia // Prince Edward Island // // Catherine Callbeck was involved in careers of business, teaching business and politics. On January 25, 1993 she was elected leader of the PEI Liberal Party, automatically making her premier as her party already held power. However, on March 29, 1993 in a landslide election (they captured all but one seat) she became the first woman elected premier in Canada. She only stayed for one term. B.C. had the first woman premier, Rita Johnson, in 1991, but she was defeated in her first election as premier just months later. //   # 6 - On April 2, 1998 the Supreme Court of Canada “read in” (that is, added) a new category of protection to Alberta’s Human Rights legislation, even though the legislature specifically kept it out. What was that category of protection? - Source of income - Appearance - Sexual orientation - Irrational fear of illness // Sexual orientation // // Delwin Vriend worked as a laboratory coordinator for King’s College in Edmonton, Alberta, until fired when the institution discovered he was gay. When he filed a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission, he was told that sexual orientation was not a protected ground in Alberta. Vriend and others went to court and after all the appeals, on April 2, 1998 the Supreme Court of Canada agreed with the original trial judge and “read in” sexual orientation as a protected category as per the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. While the government had the right to override this decision, they chose not to. In 2009, the Alberta passed the legislation to include sexual orientation, but they added a provision requiring schools to inform parents if issues of sexual orientation were going to be discussed in school. //     # 7 - On April 12, 1980 Terry Fox began his cross-Canada run for cancer research. He ran for 143 days before his cancer spread and he went home to Port Coquitlam, B.C. Where was Terry Fox born? - Winnipeg - Saskatoon - Regina - Brockville // Winnipeg // // Terry Fox was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba on July 28, 1958, and raised in Port Coquitlam, B.C. His last year of high school, he shared the Athlete of the Year award with a friend. While studying physical education at Simon Fraser University, he was diagnosed with bone cancer and suffered his right leg being amputated six inches above the knee. Suddenly keenly aware of cancer research’s lack of funds, he made it his mission to raise $1 for every person living in Canada – 24 million at the time. Fox began his “Marathon of Hope” when he dipped his artificial leg into the Atlantic Ocean in Saint John’s, Newfoundland on April 12, 1980. // // He ran 143 days through six provinces and 5,373 kilometres, only to be forced to end his journey outside Thunder Bay, Ontario, when his cancer spread to his lungs. On June 28, 1981, Terry Fox died at the Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster, B.C. // # 8 - On May 12, 1820, famed nurse, Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy. Years later she took up nursing, against her family’s strong objections. There was one other skill she pursued at an even younger age, which her mother frowned upon, because it was “unladylike.” What was that skill? Horse back riding - Swimming - Plumbing - Math // Math  // // At a young age Florence Nightingale showed her father’s bent for mathematics, to the dismay of her mother, who considered it unladylike. Fortunately, Mrs. Nightingale relented enough to allow her daughter a math tutor. As a young woman, Nightingale also took an interest in social issues and believed she had a calling from God. She took up nursing and arrived in1854 in what is now Istanbul during the Crimean war. There, she took on the task of improving conditions so horrible that more soldiers were dying in the hospitals than on the battlefield. As a woman, she had to fight for her goals, and did so with her math skills, charting statistics that proved better sanitary conditions would lead to saving lives. Indeed, her improvements to medical facilities dropped soldiers’ hospital mortality rate from 50 to 2.2%. Nightingale died at age of 90 on August 13, 1910. //  # 9 - On June 9, 1793, Upper Canada (Ontario) partially abolished slavery. What year was slavery outlawed entirely in Upper Canada? - 1798 - 1800 - 1819 - 1867     // 1819 //  // In Canada, slave ownership was fashionable, and the Imperial Statute of 1790 required nothing of slave owners but feeding and clothing their slaves. One man who disapproved of slavery, however – Upper Canada’s new Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe – began efforts in 1791 to have it abolished. He was joined by the attorney general for Upper Canada (Ontario), John White, who proposed legislation to outlaw slavery outright, a measure that received insufficient support. As the movement gained momentum, the Parliament of Upper Canada passed the “Anti-Slave Law of Upper Canada” on June 9, 1793. This put limitations on slavery, but did not eliminate it. It allowed those who owned slaves at the time the law was passed to keep them, while stipulating that no new slaves could be brought into Upper Canada for purchase. Also, children born to slaves after 1793 were freed after the age of 25. By 1819, Attorney General John Beverley Robinson outlawed slavery entirely, freeing remaining slaves and extending them protection within Upper Canada. Lower Canada (Quebec) but the Maritimes, however, which lacked laws on slavery, left it to the courts to abolish the practice. //   # 10 - On June 19, 2003, Canada’s Senate unanimously endorsed a motion to recognize the famine and genocide in 1932-33 of which people? - Poles - Ukrainians - Lithuanians - Germans // Ukrainians // // In 1932, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin starved millions of Ukrainians to death in his quest to force his farm collectives scheme on peasants, halt Ukraine’s growing independence movement and crush the nationalist spirit of the region’s people. That year, the Soviets increased its quota of grain from the Ukraine by 44 per cent by posting Soviet soldiers and the dreaded NKVD secret police to protect silos from theft by people literally dying of starvation. Stalin’s brutal dictatorship also clamped severe travel restrictions on Ukrainian peasants to prevent them from searching elsewhere for food. Experts believe between 5 and 8 million Ukrainians died as a result. The motion was brought forward by Senator Raynell Andreychuk. The motion also called on the government to designate the fourth Saturday of November as a day of remembrance. //   # 11 - On July 1, 1983, less than a year after Canada’s new constitution meant real independence from England, the celebration was renamed Canada Day. What was the name of the July 1st celebrations before it was called Canada Day? - Confederation Day - Independence Day - Dominion Day - Commonwealth Day // Dominion Day // // Almost a year after Canada became a federal country, Governor General Lord Monck called for a celebratory day. Years later, July 1st became known as Dominion Day. It was almost 100 years before Canadians marked the day with organized celebrations. By then, the world’s second largest country boasted five time zones and very lively cultural and linguistic differences; it was intact and thriving. From the original four provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec, the country grew into ten provinces and two territories (later becoming three) with the final province Newfoundland and Labrador joining in 1949. With a new constitution in April 1982, and real independence, Canada renamed Dominion Day “Canada Day” in 1983. //     # 12 - On July 23, 1914, a ship called the Komagata Maru was forced from Vancouver’s harbour by a military escort. Of the 376 passengers aboard, only 24 were allowed to stay. The people in the ship came in defiance of changes to Canada’s Immigration Act which was meant to keep which people out of Canada? Indians - Japanese - Jews - Burmese // Indians // // The first East Indians to enter Canada suffered hardship and racism sharpened by a concerted effort to keep them out. In 1910, the Canadian Parliament enacted the “continuous journey provision” of the Immigration Act, specifying that only immigrants who had traveled from their place of origin to Canada on one non-stop boat trip, could enter the country as new immigrants. Clearly, this was possible from Europe but not India; the legislation was designed specifically to exclude immigrants from India. In 1914, Gurdit Singh chartered a boat, the Komagata Maru, to challenge the discriminatory laws. Among the 376 passengers were 340 Sikhs, 12 Hindus and 24 Muslims from India. The ship departed from Hong Kong and stopped in Japan before entering Vancouver’s harbour on May 23, 1914. Authorities detained the ship for two months before it was escorted out on July 23, 1914. //     # 13 - On August 1, 1885 Louis Riel was found guilty of treason and was hanged in Regina on November 16, 1885. His act of treason was setting up a provisional government of which province? Prince Edward Island - Alberta - Saskatchewan - Manitoba // Saskatchewan // // Louis Riel was born in the Red River settlement of St. Boniface on October 22, 1844. The young Métis returned there in 1868 after studies in Montreal. He headed up a provisional government in 1869 which lead to the creation of the Manitoba Act and the territory as a Canadian province. However, after his involvement with the Red River Uprising, and with a $5,000 bounty on his head, Riel went into exile in the United States in 1870. He returned to Manitoba and was elected to the Parliament of Canada in 1873 and 1874, only to be expelled from the House of Commons by his fellow MPs. He was banished from Canada in 1875 for five years. Nine years later a group of Metis from Saskatchewan asked Riel to come back to Canada to help them with their grievances with Ottawa. Riel and the Metis were mostly ignored, so Riel created a provisional government in Saskatchewan in 1885, where he and others carried out open rebellion against the government of Canada and its troops. //   # 14 - On August 13, 1992, the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench ruled that it was unconstitutional to make prayers mandatory in public schools. This came about because a student refused to stand during the Lord’s Prayer. In which Manitoba town did this begin? - Churchill - Miami - Flin Flon - MacGregor // MacGregor // // In 1986, Chris Tait was given a week’s suspension at MacGregor High School in Manitoba for refusing to stand during the Lord’s Prayer. That led to the court’s ruling in 1992. At the time, only Manitoba and British Columbia still required prayers in public schools, and an Ontario Court of Appeal decision had recently produced similar results. As part of the Manitoba ruling, Justice Monnin struck down the section of Manitoba’s Public Schools Act that contravened section 2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms relating to freedom of conscience and religion. //   # 15 - On September 5, 1972, eight Palestinian terrorists, members of the militant group Black September, raided the headquarters of Israelis who were in Germany. They killed 11 Israelis in this attack. What event were the Israelis attending in Germany? - Olympics - World Cup - Expo - United Nations Forum // Olympics // // Eleven days into the 1972 summer Olympic Games in Munich, eight Palestinians raided the Israeli team headquarters at the Olympic village. They killed two Israeli athletes, then took nine others hostage. Olympic officials suspended the games and the world watched, horrified, as intense media coverage ensued. The terrorists demanded the release of 234 Arab prisoners in Israel, and two German terrorists in Germany. When they also demanded a plane, officials arranged for three helicopters to transport the terrorists and hostages to a military airfield outside Munich, where those officials secretly planned to rescue the athletes. In the bungled operation, all the Israeli hostages, five of the terrorists and one policeman were killed. But authorities had captured three of the terrorists. Thirty-four hours after a memorial service was held in the main stadium, the International Olympic Committee ordered the competitions to resume. //     # 16 - On October 18, 1929, Canadian women were finally considered “persons,” allowing them to be appointed as judges and senators. What legal body made that final decision? The Alberta Court of Appeal - The House of Lords - Parliament’s Judicial Committee - The Supreme Court of Canada // The House of Lords // // Emily Murphy was appointed an Edmonton magistrate in 1916 by Alberta’s attorney general. However, on her first day as a magistrate, a defendant’s lawyer challenged her authority, saying women were not “persons” under the British North America Act. Five Alberta women decided to challenge that in 1927: Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Irene Parlby, Louise McKinney and Henrietta Muir. The Supreme Court of Canada said women were not “persons,” so they appealed their case to the judicial committee of the Privy Council of the House of Lords in England. After four days of deliberations, on October 18, 1929, the council stated that Canadian women were eligible for appointment to the Senate. When he announced the decision, Lord Sankey, lord chancellor of the Privy Council, felt it appropriate to comment, “The exclusion of women from all public offices is a relic of days more barbarous than ours. And to those who would ask why the word ‘person’ should include females, the obvious answer is, why should it not?” // # 17 - On October 26, 1952, Hollywood’s first black Oscar-winner, Hattie McDaniel died. She won her Academy Award for the role of Mammy in the legendary 1939 movie Gone with the Wind. At the award’s ceremony at the Ambassador Hotel, where did Ms. McDaniel sit? At the front - At the back - In a separate room - With all the other nominees // At the back // // Hattie McDaniel was born June 10, 1895 in Wichita, Kansas. She began her career by working beside other blacks in the limited roles that tent shows and vaudeville allowed. Even though she won her Oscar in 1939, McDaniel faced discrimination for the color of her skin. During the Academy Awards ceremony at the Coconut Grove night club in the famous Ambassador Hotel, officials made McDaniel sit at the back alone. Before her death from breast cancer on October 26, 1952, she’d racked up 100 movie credits to her name. Her desire to be buried in the Hollywood Cemetery with other movie stars was denied by the owner Jules Roth, because she was black. In 1999, the new owner of the cemetery, Tyler Cassidy, offered to move her remains, but her family declined. Instead Tyler honoured McDaniel with a large cenotaph which overlooks the lake. It took until 1990 when Whoopi Goldberg won her Oscar in the supporting role in the movie Ghost for the second African American actress to win an Academy Award. //   # 18 - On November 13, 1956, the United States Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation on public buses was unconstitutional in nine states. It all started when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a white man and African Americans began a boycott of the bus company. What was the name of the organization that urged black people to boycott the bus system? - Civil Rights League of America - Friends of Rosa Parks - Montgomery Improvement Association - Alabama Citizens for Justice // Montgomery Improvement Association // // While the legal case was going forward, the Montgomery Improvement Association led the boycott against the Montgomery Bus Company. Few people expected it to last as long as it did, because few black Americans were wealthy enough to own their own cars. Not only did the boycott last more than a year, but even after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in their favour on November 13, 1956, the boycott continued until the paper work was completed on December 21st of the same year. Talk about a real sacrifice to stand up for an injustice. //     # 19 - On December 6, 1989, a gunman burst into an engineering class at École Polytechnique, an engineering school affiliated with the University of Montreal. He sent the men out of the room and killed 6 women in that class, and 14 women in total. In 1991 the Parliament of Canada established December 6th as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. This day is to remember those 14 women, but also to eliminate violence against which people? Canadians - Women in male-dominated fields - Men and women - Women and girls // Women and girls // // When the gunman told the men to get out of the class room and said he hated “feminists,” it was difficult for many Canadians to admit that there was no other common denominator other than these people were women. Debate ensued throughout the country about the meaning of this and what needs to be done specifically to protect girls and women from violence. It’s important to remember who these women were: Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Barbara Maria Klucznik, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault and Annie Turcotte. //   # 20 - On December 17, 1985, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of Theresa O’Malley, who requested Friday nights and Saturdays off work at Simpsons-Sears department store in Kingston, Ontario. What human right did the store violate when they told Ms. O’Malley she couldn’t keep her full time job if she wanted those shifts off work? - Creed - Colour of skin - Family status - Place of origin // Creed // // In October 1978, Theresa O’Malley joined the Seventh Day Adventist church, which requires strict observance of their Sabbath from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday. In 1978, retailers made most of their money between Thursday and Saturday nights, so O’Malley was told by her employer, Simpsons-Sears, she would lose her full-time status and most of her benefits if she insisted on not working Saturdays. She complained to the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and after years of litigation, the Supreme Court of Canada sided with her, stating that Simpsons-Sears had discriminated against her based on her creed (belief, faith). The retailer’s policy that employees work most Friday nights and Saturdays applied equally to everyone, but even so, its effect was discriminatory on O’Malley, the court ruled. The impact or effect is more important that the intention, the justices further explained, when it comes to protecting human rights. The retailer would not have suffered “undue hardship” in giving her different shifts or finding her a different role, the court added. //