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Modern Canada › Key Figures
What is the significance of Viola Desmond?
- The first female Prime Minister of Canada
- A pioneering female scientist at the University of Toronto
- The first Black woman elected to the House of Commons
- A Black Nova Scotian businesswoman who refused to leave a whites-only section of a cinema in 1946, becoming a symbol of the civil rights movement in Canada
Why this is the correct answer
In 1946, Viola Desmond refused to leave a whites-only section of a cinema in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, and was arrested and fined. Her courageous stand against racial segregation made her a landmark figure in Canada's civil rights history, and she now appears on the Canadian ten-dollar bill.