Small P and Large P Politics and the F Word

Good afternoon. I’m spitting slightly fewer nails today 48 hours after the announcement that Mulcair will not attending the Up For Debate debate on women’s issues. For those interested in following up, Up For Debate have set up a twitter campaign and petition to address the cancellation of the debate and are now hoping to undertake one-on-one interviews with each leader. Help that happen by clicking here:   http://ctt.ec/gS9dw , to share the following: Leaders must put #women at the centre of #elxn42! #womenmatter #upfordebate On a more positive note this article by Amanda Connolly appeared in ipolitics this morning on the growing popularity of feminism among younger women based on today’s pop culture leaders speaking out for feminism and feminist issues.  I would also argue that the rise in interest in feminism in Canada is also the result of the tireless work of feminist organizations like the Canadian Women’s Foundation and Equal Voice. Kudos should also go to the F...

This summer at the cottage I’ve been trying to keep up with the election news on my tablet news feed and online subscriptions to ipolitics and The Hill Times . There is the usual CBC radio, but it was through the Hill Times I got an inkling that there was to be a federal leaders debate on women’s and gender issues on September 21 st (Rachel Aiello, “Grit Leader Trudeau, Green Leader May only two federal leaders in for debate on women’s issues, Sept 21, Hill Times , August 4, 2015). Then this morning I read from Metro News that the debate is in “jeopardy” because NDP leader Tom Mulcair will not debate if Stephen Harper is not there. [I will get my rant out of the way before the more substantive discussion] In pursuit of full disclosure, for the past four elections I have been an inveterate strategic voter. I prefer the NDP but will comfortably vote Liberal if I have to. However, with the wonderful performance of the NDP members of the Commons Justice Committee on Bill C-36 ...

The following are word clouds derived from the testimony given to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and the Senate standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs by groups supporting Bill C-36. It is clear that the dominant frames involved exploitation, vulnerability, trafficking, and young girls and children. Sexual Assault Centers (Concertation des lute contre l'exloitation sexuelle, London Abused Women's Network, Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centers, Rape Relief and Women's Shelter) Women's Organizations (Canadian Women's Foundation, Native Women's Association of Canada, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies) Survivor Organizations (Asian Women's Coalition Ending Prostitution, Bridge North, Center to End All Sexual Exploitation, EVE-Exploited Voices Now Educating, Northern Women's Connection, Rising Angels, Servants Anonymous Calgary, Sex Trade 101, Sex Trafficking Survivors ...

The following is derived from the research I did for a paper I presented at the Annual Meetings of the Canadian Political Science Association last week at the University of Ottawa, Ottawa.  We can clearly see in looking at the testimony before the Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights (July 7 to 15, 2014) and the Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs (September 9, 10, 17, and October 29 and 30, 2014), that there is a clear divide between those who advocate for a "social protection" model versus a "marketization" model regarding sex work in Canada.  Groups For Bill C-36 Groups Against C-36 What I have done here is compiled the testimony from the groups and individuals supporting Bill C-36 and the groups and individuals opposing C-36 converted it to rich text and uploaded it to TagCrowd (tagcrowd.com) to create word clouds. Screens were set to capture the most common 75 words, to combine associated words, and to give num...

I’m starting with the PEI election of Monday May 4 th for a number of reasons. As a much smaller election it takes less time to break down and comment on and I have a number of things on my plate at the moment. I also find the often overlooked Maritime Provinces interesting and think there may be some cultural features that differentiate women’s political experiences here from other parts of Canada.   Plus, this election has now been totally eclipsed by the success of the snowball overcoming the heat of hell as seen in the NDP victory in Alberta. I’m still not entirely sure I wasn’t dreaming the coverage I watched on my computer last night.  It is interesting how similar Monday’s election in P.E.I was to the September 2014 election in New Brunswick. In my blog breaking down the New Brunswick results, I commented, “so few seats combined with a moderate number of seats changing hands and a moderate number of safe seats usually held by men, mean fewer women.” This is ev...