Former MP Bossio now working for Gender Equality Minister Monsef
Women and Gender Equality and Rural Economic Development Minister Maryam Monsef’s office includes her former caucus colleague, Mike Bossio, who’s been hired on as a senior adviser for rural affairs. Mr. Bossio was the MP for the riding neighbouring Ms. Monsef’s, Hastings-Lennox and Addington, Ont., from 2015 until last fall, when he was defeated by […]
Law enforcement’s got a racism problem, and it’s set to get worse
OTTAWA—NWA really produced a timeless banger with their seminal song about the police. Yeah, you know the title. As discussed in this column last week, “Surveillance is the way white supremacy has controlled populations by controlling their movement, who they associate with, and the spaces they occupy.” Surveillance is also intended to create labels for […]
In a time of adversity, anger gets us nowhere
OTTAWA—STFU. That was the reply I received from a Montreal woman the other day on Facebook. The discussion focused on a Conservative private member’s bill proposing to reduce sex-selection abortions. I suggested something should be done in the way of education or empowerment to reduce the abortions of females, mostly among the Asian diaspora. While […]
Reconciliation is wearing Eau de Colonialism 2020
OTTAWA—Do you hear that? It’s the sound of reconciliation buckling under the oppressive weight of white supremacy. Ostensibly, Canada was founded on the principles of “peace, order, and good government,” and apart from missing the necessary aspirational quality expected in the birth of a nation, the list of principles is missing one defining feature: white […]
‘I don’t celebrate Black History Month, I celebrate Black history 12 months of the year’: Sen. Bernard on her fight for equality
On a snowy day in 2018, Independent Senator Wanda Thomas Bernard boarded a Parliament Hill shuttle bus in front of the Victoria Building, heading to Centre Block. She said the Senators getting on the bus before her boarded with no issues, but the driver stopped Sen. Bernard to ask for identification that she was a […]
Still a long way to go on the road to more women in the Armed Forces
OTTAWA—Those readers old enough to remember may recall an advertising campaign from the late ’60s promoting Virginia Slim cigarettes. The theme behind this series of television commercials and magazine ads was to illustrate just how far feminism had advanced throughout North American society. The plotline was consistent, wherein we were reminded of how, not so […]
Lynn Beyak gets second chances this country would never give to Indigenous people
How do you solve a problem like Lynn Beyak? The answer could be so simple, but the Senate of Canada would rather make it hard. The ongoing saga of Senator Beyak and her unrepentant racism added a new chapter this week, with the release of the Senate Ethics Committee’s report on the latest efforts to […]
Kuwait ambassador brings team approach to diplomacy
Diplomacy is not so different from the calculations Kuwait’s new ambassador to Canada says she made as a squash player for her country, bringing the same “drive for achievement” to her now third head of mission posting. Strategy also comes into play on both fields of interest, noted Reem Al Khaled. “When do you place […]
Raitt’s loss sparks questions about future of women in the Conservative Party, says political expert
Lisa Raitt’s defeat on Oct. 21 raises larger questions about where women fit within the Conservative Party, says one political expert, but Conservative MPs say the groundwork that was laid in the last election, where the party fielded a record 106 female candidates, won’t be easily undone. “Clearly, Lisa is a huge loss for the […]
Racism is rearing its ugly head, and we have to call it out
OTTAWA—I was on a plane flying from Montreal to Ottawa a few weeks ago. I was sitting at the back of the plane when a young Black man came down the aisle to sit down. The flight attendant, a white man in his 50s, immediately told him not to sit in his intended seat, as […]
