{"id":341160,"date":"2021-09-17T23:09:23","date_gmt":"2021-09-17T20:09:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/federal-election-2021-the-men-on-the-campaign-trail\/"},"modified":"2021-09-17T23:09:23","modified_gmt":"2021-09-17T20:09:23","slug":"federal-election-2021-the-men-on-the-campaign-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/federal-election-2021-the-men-on-the-campaign-trail\/","title":{"rendered":"#Federal election 2021: The men on the campaign trail"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Federal election 2021: The men on the campaign trail<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n Oh, what an election to be a woman.<\/span><\/p>\n

With just days left to go in this particularly joyless campaign, it\u2019s worth taking a moment to app<\/a>reciate how we\u2014men, who still form a dominating majority in both the political and media<\/a> classes\u2014have managed to say a lot of nice things and live up to very few of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

From the guy vying to remain as Prime Minister, who stood beside his man despite four allegations of misconduct, and who ditched him too late, only after a fifth woman came forward.<\/span><\/p>\n

To the party leader who will never be prime minister, who was accused of sexual misconduct and who has skated through this election without ever having to respond to it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Or the party leader who will likely not be prime minister, at least not this time, who had to fend off attacks from both her own party and the aforementioned leader who feels personally victimized by the term \u201csystemic racism.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In that vein, let\u2019s consider the women of Quebec, who have once again found themselves talked about, but not spoken to, in a debate over their rights.<\/span><\/p>\n

Throughout this campaign, when issues facing women were raised, they were more often not a cudgel for The Feminist Prime Minister\u2122 to assail his allegedly un-woke competitor.<\/span><\/p>\n

All told, this election should be pretty clear evidence that for all the gains towards actual gender equality this country has made\u2014boy, do we ever have a way to go.<\/span><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t let a few accusations get in the way of a good process<\/b><\/p>\n

We learned in recent weeks, thanks to the CBC\u2019s <\/span>Ashley Burke<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>The Record<\/span><\/i>\u2019s <\/span>Luisa D\u2019Amato<\/span><\/a>, that Kitchener Centre MP Raj Saini was the subject of accusations from four different women. They accused him of unwanted touching, workplace bullying, and sexual advances at a Parliament Hill Christmas party.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And yet, faced with these allegations on the campaign trail, the Liberal Party said, in three of the cases, it had \u201cno record or knowledge of the matter,\u201d according to the CBC. The fourth, Trudeau himself said, was investigated under a \u201crigorous process.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But under that process, the woman who filed the allegation <\/span>says she wasn\u2019t interviewed<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Conservative candidate Melissa Lantsman said it was just another example of Trudeau \u201ccovering up the misconduct of his candidates.\u201d NDP candidate Lindsay Mathyssen echoed Tammy Wynette: \u201cJustin Trudeau did what he has done so many times before \u2014 he stood by his man.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Apparently five is the magic number, because when another woman came forward\u2014making an unspecific allegation\u2014Saini was un-endorsed by the Liberal Party.<\/span><\/p>\n

Saini\u2019s name will remain on the ballot as the Liberal candidate for Kitchener-Centre, however. Which is rather insulting to the women who are still, technically, running against the man.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor a lot of people on my team, that week [before Saini dropped out] was really, really difficult,\u201d says Beisan Zubi, NDP candidate for Kitchener-Centre. (Full disclosure: Zubi is a longtime friend, having met while she was a Parliament Hill staffer and I was in the Parliamentary Press Gallery.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Politics can be unwelcoming for female candidates anyway: Unwanted comments, creepy invitations while door-knocking, constant comments on your appearance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But to have to run against that bad behaviour is another thing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt got better once he dropped out,\u201d Zubi admits. (Conservative Mary Henein Thorn is also running for the seat. The Conservative Party did not respond to my media request to speak with or get a statement from her.)<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s particularly galling for Zubi, who wrote a <\/span>scathing piece<\/span><\/a> in 2017 entitled: \u201cHere\u2019s why I never reported sexual harassment while working on Parliament Hill.\u201d She was even asked to testify before a House of Commons committee about Trudeau\u2019s plan for a new process to handle complaints in Parliament.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d hazard a guess that it doesn\u2019t do very much to protect people in many of these situations,\u201d Zubi told the committee. \u201cIn fact, the onus to report is on the victim. They have to work within their own party infrastructure and go to the whips.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That sums up the farce of the Saini investigation rather well.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey built the process so that it wouldn\u2019t be welcoming to victims,\u201d Zubi told me this week. Watching Trudeau defend that process, and Saini, was \u201cso obtuse,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was exactly the opposite of what he\u2019d said he\u2019d do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Trudeau also stood by Marwan Tabbara, who faced <\/span>sexual misconduct allegations<\/span><\/a> and was approved to run in 2019 regardless. (Tabbara was <\/span>arrested in 2020<\/span><\/a> and now faces charges of assault and criminal harassment.) He stood by Kent Hehr, who faced <\/span>multiple allegations<\/span><\/a> of inappropriate sexual behaviour. And this comes off months of allegations that Trudeau and his cabinet are woefully mishandling a <\/span>culture of harassment<\/span><\/a> in the military.<\/span><\/p>\n

Croyez-moi<\/b><\/p>\n

There was a curious moment during the TVA debate, earlier in September.<\/span><\/p>\n

During a debate about sexual harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces, and the broader #MeToo movement, moderator Pierre Bruneau asked Bloc Quebecois leader Yves-Fran\u00e7ois Blanchet if the \u201cparallel system of justice\u201d arising from social media was cause for concern.<\/span><\/p>\n

In an otherwise encouraging series<\/a> of answers\u2014we need to promote clarity and accommodation for women who experience harassment and assault, he said, particularly in the justice system\u2014he made a strange aside.<\/span><\/p>\n

Women not having a \u201cfeeling of clarity\u201d in the justice system has led to \u201ca form of retribution that\u2019s happening, primarily on social media which can do, believe me, real damage to one\u2019s personal life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After the debate I asked Blanchet: What did you mean, <\/span>believe me<\/span><\/i>?<\/span><\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t answer it directly, but then again I already knew the answer: Blanchet faced accusations of sexual assault last year on an anonymous Facebook page, amid of a <\/span>wave of allegations<\/span><\/a> against powerful men and women in Quebec. The anonymous woman said that Blanchet offered her cocaine, then groped and kissed her even as she objected.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t just one anonymous post: The woman <\/span>spoke to the Montreal Gazette<\/span><\/a> and repeated the allegations, providing details of the night to reporter Christopher Curtis.\u00a0<\/span>Blanchet \u201cunequivocally\u201d denied the allegations, <\/span>challenged the woman to file a police complaint<\/span><\/a>, and said he would cease commenting on the story altogether. And he did.<\/span><\/p>\n

The story has nary been heard since.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWomen\u2019s issues\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

This week, Global News<\/a>\u2019 Neetu Garcha <\/span>sat down<\/span><\/a> with Trudeau to talk about a range of subjects.<\/span><\/p>\n

In particular, Garcha asked if Trudeau ought to drop his title of \u201cfeminist,\u201d given the number of women who have been pushed out of his cabinet and party \u2014 and the number of men who have been allowed to stay.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trudeau answered as expected. Straight to highlighting his team. To the childcare plan that he has made central to his campaign. To suggest that Erin O\u2019Toole presents a threat to their right to choose.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet when Garcha asked Trudeau four times whether Quebec\u2019s Bill 21, which forbids religious minorities from wearing identifying symbols at work, was \u201cdiscriminatory,\u201d Trudeau was in less comfortable territory. Four times, he refused to use the word.<\/span><\/p>\n

Galling, as the Superior Court of Quebec was quite clear on the effects of the law. \u201cThere is no doubt in this case that the negation, by Law 21, of the rights guaranteed by the Charter has severe consequences on the affected persons.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Not only are state employees \u201costracized,\u201d the court found, \u201cwhat\u2019s more, some will see their dreams made impossible and others will be stuck in their roles without the possibility of advancing or moving.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The scathing decision continues: \u201cLaw 21 sends the message to students that minorities who wear religious symbols occupy a different place in society.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In Trudeau\u2019s defence, and as he rightly pointed out, he\u2019s the only party leader who is open to challenging the law in court. That\u2019s tragic in its own right. Yet Trudeau, Blanchet and O\u2019Toole all lined up to admonish the debate for daring to call a discriminatory law discriminatory.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet when Shachi Kurl dared use that word, \u201cdiscriminatory,\u201d on stage and at the English language leaders\u2019 debate: She was vilified.<\/span><\/p>\n

Blanchet called Kurl\u2019s question a \u201cflurry of insults\u201d wherein Quebecers were called \u201cracists and xenophobes.\u201d On Wednesday, both Trudeau and O\u2019Toole demanded the debate broadcasters apologize for daring to insult the law, and the fragile ego of Premier Francois Legault.<\/span><\/p>\n

After the debate, the Bloc leader explained that the mean woman asking about the law that Quebec\u2019s own court system says is discriminatory (but legal, only due to the notwithstanding clause) is evidence that they require a man like Blanchet. \u201cIf Quebecers needed a guard dog before, they\u2019re dangerously in need now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Kurl wasn\u2019t the only woman to catch Blanchet\u2019s ire. He similarly lashed out at Paul for her insistence that the Bloc leader recognize the realities of systemic racism in Canada and Quebec. Paul hasn\u2019t had a great election anyway\u2014she was nearly ousted from her party, less than a year after being elected by the membership.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After the debate I asked Paul, to paraphrase myself: Didn\u2019t that suck?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI simply made the point that if he is interested in learning more about the experience of people like myself or those who have said very clearly that systemic discrimination exists,\u201d Paul began, noting that \u2018systemic\u2019 pretty much means it\u2019s much bigger than the nation of Quebec: \u201cI again extend my hand in friendship and understanding toward him.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Good luck befriending the guard dog.<\/span><\/p>\n

All the men running should have to explain their unconscionable position to Amrit Kaur, the Sikh woman challenging the law: The woman who had to pick up her life and move from Quebec to British Columbia in order to do her job. To teach.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat feeling of racism, being disenfranchised, you can hear about it, but when you feel it on yourself, there\u2019s a sadness you can\u2019t describe,\u201d she <\/span>told my colleague Stephen Maher in 2019<\/span>. \u201cThat feeling, I don\u2019t wish it on anyone.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

43 per cent ain\u2019t enough<\/b><\/p>\n

For years, we have had a bunch of male leaders who insist that achieving the goals of feminism is, at least in part, a man\u2019s job.<\/span><\/p>\n

And perhaps we need to find some new applicants for that job.<\/span><\/p>\n

The House of Commons is only 30 per cent female. According to Equal Voice, only 43 percent of candidates are women or gender diverse\u2014up just a single point from 2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of the major parties, only the NDP is running more female candidates than men\u2014the other parties are, like they\u2019ve done for more than a century, running more men than women.<\/span><\/p>\n

A welcome change, however, are a handful of transgender and non-binary candidates running. Conservative <\/span>Hannah Hudson<\/span><\/a> is running in Victoria. Green <\/span>Nicki Ward<\/span><\/a> is running in York South \u2014 Weston.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it seems all but certain Parliament will look the same as when the MPs left it this summer: Overwhelmingly male, and uniformly cisgender.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n