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 ...