NEW $50 SLAMMED AS RACIST

Canada's $50 bill will soon be replaced by images that have been
attacked as racist and elitist, depicting portraits of the Famous 5
(Judge Emily Murphy, Louise McKinney, Nellie McClung, Irene Parlby and
the Montreal-born Henrietta Muir Edwards).

Starting next month, the women's rights activists from Alberta will
appear on the bill alongside Quebecoise activist Therese Casgrain.
While the five won major gains in the legal status of women in Canada,
they were also hostile to Asian immigrants and supported the
sterilization of the less-bright among us. Calgary Sun columnist
Michael Platt describes them as "white supremacists," pointing out
that "Judge Murphy, in her 1922 book on drug abuse, The Black Candle,
claimed narcotics are a conspiracy by blacks and Asians to bring about
the degeneration of the white race."

But Frances Wright, whose Famous 5 Foundation lobbied for the bill,
thinks differently. "The good things the Famous 5 did greatly outweigh
any mistakes that they might've made," she says, explaining that The
Black Candle was written after Wright consulted 500 "police chiefs,
judges and politicians in the British Empire about the growth of drugs
in the world. We believe they are the pre-eminent democratic champions
of Canada, because they're largely responsible for Canadian women's
right to vote and run for office."

Says Fo Niemi of local anti-racist Centre for Research-Action on Race
Relations, "We can celebrate what these women did but we still have to
acknowledge their racist past, which is a reflection of their times."