International Women’s Day celebrates progress. But if we expect women to stay in public leadership roles, we need online hate legislation. We need safety in real life.
Published Mar 08, 2023 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 3 minute read
It is International Women’s Day, 2023. Over the past decade, more women have entered politics than ever. There is still a significant gender imbalance at all levels of leadership and decision-making, with women accounting for less than one per cent of heads of state globally. In Canada, 29.4 per cent of elected positions in the federal government are held by women, and 48.6 per cent of cabinet ministers are women. That is progress.
But, for some, the conditions are so toxic they are leaving.
January 2023 began with the resignation of Jacinda Ardern, prime minister of New Zealand. She was a successful leader at the height of her career. She was subject to unprecedented harassment and vitriol, threats against her having almost tripled over three years. “What we see now is absolutely normative, extremely vulgar and violent slurs … incredibly violent use of imagery around death threats,” said Kate Hannah, director of the Disinformation Project which monitors online extremism at research centre Te Pūnaha Matatini.
Nicola Sturgeon, the first woman prime minister of Scotland, stepped down in February 2023. “I get up in the morning and I tell myself, and usually I convince myself, that I’ve got what it takes to keep going and keep going and keep going,” she said. “But then I realize that that’s maybe not as true.”
In Canada, cyberbullying and harassment of women in politics is not new. Catherine McKenna, MP for Ottawa Centre and federal cabinet minister from 2015 to 2021, stepped away from politics in 2021. She and her family were threatened, protesters harassed her at her home, her office was vandalized, and she was the target of misogynist online hate because of her work on climate action. Sadly, climate change denialists sometimes overlap with COVID-19 denialists, spreaders of anti-vaccine and anti-mask disinformation, and right-wing, hate-fuelled organizations.
2021 was also the year that Mumilaaq Qaqqaq, an Inuit MP from Nunavut, stepped down from federal politics with a scathing speech. “Every time I walk on House of Commons grounds, speak in these chambers, I’m reminded every step of the way (that) I don’t belong here,” she said in her resignation speech. “I have never felt safe,” she asserted.
Fast-forward to February 2023. Melanie Mark, the first First Nations woman to serve in the British Columbia legislature, stepped down from her role as provincial tourism minister. “This place felt like a torture chamber,” she said. “I will not miss the character assassination.”
Excuse the Canadian expression, but the women who stepped down were not s— disturbers any more than their male counterparts who stood up for human rights, 2SLGBTQ+ rights, the environment or Indigenous people. Ardern, McKenna, Sturgeon, Mark and Qaqqaq were disproportionately targeted, though, because they are women.
Were threats and harassment a factor in their decisions to resign? If you’ve been at the receiving end of death threats, rape threats, racial slurs, insults about one’s appearance, tone-policing, and other forms of hate and discrimination, you wouldn’t ask such a question.
I write from experience. As a Jewish woman who stepped onto a public stage as a physician to advocate for equitable access to vaccines and to support use of masks, I did not expect to become the target of misogynist, antisemitic death threats. As an Ottawa school board trustee, I did not expect that the misogynist, antisemitic death threats would result in my being advised to shut down all social media use and refrain from attending meetings in person, for my “safety,” while “anti-woke” organizers boast about disruption to board meetings.
The attacks on women in politics are reproduced as patterns of harassment in boardrooms, academe, medical institutions and other corridors of power.
It takes courage to enter politics, and it takes courage to leave politics. I greatly admire Arden, McKenna, Sturgeon, Mark, Qaqqaq. Their decision to say “enough is enough,” however, is a bad omen.
We need online hate legislation. We need safety in real life.
In the words of singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman, be and be not afraid. We cannot lose everyone who questions oppressive structures, who calls out systemic discrimination, who fights for the environment, who augments the voices of those who were previously silenced.
But be not afraid, speak about what is toxic, change our trajectory.
Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth, MD, CCFP, FCFP, PhD is a family physician, Ottawa public school board trustee, and anthropologist.
Opinion: Brad West been one of the sharpest critics of decriminalization
Published Apr 22, 2024 • Last updated 2 hours ago • 4 minute read
VICTORIA — Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West fired off a letter to Premier David Eby last week about Allan Schoenborn, the child killer who changed his name in a bid for anonymity.
“It is completely beyond the pale that individuals like Schoenborn have the ability to legally change their name in an attempt to disassociate themselves from their horrific crimes and to evade the public,” wrote West.
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The Alberta government has legislated against dangerous, long-term and high risk offenders who seek to change their names to escape public scrutiny.
“I urge your government to pass similar legislation as a high priority to ensure the safety of British Columbians,” West wrote the premier.
The B.C. Review Board has granted Schoenborn overnight, unescorted leave for up to 28 days, and he spent some of that time in Port Coquitlam, according to West.
This despite the board being notified that “in the last two years there have been 15 reported incidents where Schoenborn demonstrated aggressive behaviour.”
“It is absolutely unacceptable that an individual who has committed such heinous crimes, and continues to demonstrate this type of behaviour, is able to roam the community unescorted.”
Understandably, those details alarmed PoCo residents.
But the letter is also an example of the outspoken mayor’s penchant for to-the-point pronouncements on provincewide concerns.
He’s been one of the sharpest critics of decriminalization.
His most recent blast followed the news that the New Democrats were appointing a task force to advise on ways to curb the use of illicit drugs and the spread of weapons in provincial hospitals.
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“Where the hell is the common sense here?” West told Mike Smyth on CKNW recently. “This has just gone way too far. And to have a task force to figure out what to do — it’s obvious what we need to do.
“In a hospital, there’s no weapons and you can’t smoke crack or fentanyl or any other drugs. There you go. Just saved God knows how much money and probably at least six months of dithering.”
He had a pithy comment on the government’s excessive reliance on outside consultants like MNP to process grants for clean energy and other programs.
“If ever there was a place to find savings that could be redirected to actually delivering core public services, it is government contracts to consultants like MNP,” wrote West.
He’s also broken with the Eby government on the carbon tax.
“The NDP once opposed the carbon tax because, by its very design, it is punishing to working people,” wrote West in a social media posting.
“The whole point of the tax is to make gas MORE expensive so people don’t use it. But instead of being honest about that, advocates rely on flimsy rebate BS. It is hard to find someone who thinks they are getting more dollars back in rebates than they are paying in carbon tax on gas, home heat, etc.”
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West has a history with the NDP. He was a political staffer and campaign worker with Mike Farnworth, the longtime NDP MLA for Port Coquitlam and now minister of public safety.
When West showed up at the legislature recently, Farnworth introduced him to the house as “the best mayor in Canada” and endorsed him as his successor: “I hope at some time he follows in my footsteps and takes over when I decide to retire — which is not just yet,” added Farnworth who is running this year for what would be his eighth term.
Other political players have their eye on West as a future prospect as well.
Several parties have invited him to run in the next federal election. He turned them all down.
Lately there has also been an effort to recruit him to lead a unified Opposition party against Premier David Eby in this year’s provincial election.
I gather the advocates have some opinion polling to back them up and a scenario that would see B.C. United and the Conservatives make way (!) for a party to be named later.
Such flights of fancy are commonplace in B.C. when the NDP is poised to win against a divided Opposition.
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By going after West, the advocates pay a compliment to his record as mayor (low property taxes and a fix-every-pothole work ethic) and his populist stands on public safety, carbon taxation and other provincial issues.
The outreach to a small city mayor who has never run provincially also says something about the perceived weaknesses of the alternatives to Eby.
“It is humbling,” West said Monday when I asked his reaction to the overtures.
But he is a young father with two boys, aged three and seven. The mayor was 10 when he lost his own dad and he believes that if he sought provincial political leadership now, “I would not be the type of dad I want to be.”
When West ran for re-election — unopposed — in 2022, he promised to serve out the full four years as mayor.
He is poised to keep his word, confident that if the overtures to run provincially are serious, they will still be there when his term is up.
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LIVE Q&A WITH B.C. PREMIER DAVID EBY: Join us April 23 at 3:30 p.m. when we will sit down with B.C. Premier David Eby for a special edition of Conversations Live. The premier will answer our questions — and yours — about a range of topics, including housing, drug decriminalization, transportation, the economy, crime and carbon taxes. Click HERE to get a link to the livestream emailed to your inbox.
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