The First “Persons” Case in Alberta.

A simple vagrancy case rarely reaches the level of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Alberta, but the lawyer for Lizzie Cyr (also known as Lizzie Watters) challenged her conviction on several grounds, including the fact that Alice Jamieson, the police magistrate who had first convicted Cyr, was not eligible to serve because she was a woman. In denying Cyr’s appeal, the justices reaffirmed that women in Alberta were persons, a status not clarified for the rest of Canada until 1929.