3 Quebec women are finalists for new Canadian banknote

The Bank of Canada has announced the long list of 12 iconic Canadian women who could be featured on the first in a new series of bank notes expected in 2018.

Three of them are from Quebec. They fought for women's right to vote and revolutionized literature.

Meet the finalists:

Thérèse Casgrain

1896 - 1981

Casgrain was instrumental in winning Quebec women the right to vote. She helped found the provincial franchise committee for women's suffrage and was leader of the Ligue des droits de la femme for 14 years.

Thanks to her efforts, women were allowed to vote in provincial elections in 1940.

Seeking to to serve in office herself, she ran as a federal Liberal seven times, but never won. She later joined the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, which would become the New Democratic Party, and led its Quebec wing for seven years.

Gabrielle Roy

1909 - 1983

Born in Manitoba, Roy made a living in Montreal as a journalist. She would pen the first Canadian urban novel in 1945, Bonheur d'occasion, based on her observations of Saint-Henri, then a poor, struggling neighbourhood.

It was translated into a dozen languages, and is credited with helping fuel the mentality that led to the Quiet Revolution.

She would go on to write 15 more books that broke with Canadian literary traditions.

Idola St-Jean

1880 - 1945

Another fighter for women's suffrage, St-Jean was the first woman from Quebec to run in a federal election.

She started her career as an actress and later became a professor of French language and diction. She went on to work for women's rights by joining the provincial franchise committee, where she worked alongside Thérèse Casgrain.

The two women split the committee in two, with Casgrain focusing her attention on middle-class women, and St-Jean on the working class.