Most commentators ignored the paucity of diversity on his team. But for those of us who care about these issues, the photo was a stark visual reminder that in Poilievre’s party, it is still a man’s world.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 19, 2022.

OTTAWA—Will Rogers said you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Pierre Poilievre must not have been listening.

If so, his first week as leader could have been a winner.

On the evening of his coronation, even with regal funereal news competition from across the pond, Poilievre knocked it out of the park.

His spouse’s introduction placed the new leader exactly where he needs to be, a happy family man whose soft edges are inclusive.

His embrace of personal diversity, including his own family story, were certainly not aligned with the narrative he had used to steamroll his way into the win.

The party endorsement was overwhelming. Two-thirds of the vote went to him, while former premier Jean Charest was reduced to the teens.

Poilievre’s opening performance seemed to indicate that he was prepared to pivot. Having convinced the vast majority of fellow Conservatives that he was their man, his job is now to convince the country.

The acceptance speech got a lot of Liberals worried. Several former cabinet colleagues were gathered at a Toronto symposium on foreign policy the same weekend.

The group’s consensus was that the government would be foolish to assume that Poilievre could not win an election.

The good news for Liberals is that most people do not tune in to party conventions.

And the softer side of the new leader was immediately disposed of at his first post-leader press conference.

After opening the presser with a refusal to take questions, Poilievre was heckled by Global News reporter David Akin, who insistently raised his voice to ensure a question period.

Poilievre accused Akin of being a Liberal plant, set up to heckle him on his first day.

His tone was crisp and angry. That was the first impression he left with those who were seeing the Conservative leader for the first time.

Akin, hardly a Liberal troll, was immediately attacked by Tories heeding Poilievre’s call to “go around” the media.

Later that day, Akin posted a Twitter apology, characterizing his outburst as “rude and disrespectful.”

But that did not stop the Tories from using the incident as a fundraiser.

Within 48 hours, Poilievre’s team sent out a fundraising email, claiming the party could not count on the media to carry their message, saying, “we have to go around them and their biased coverage.”

He also reiterated his promise to defund the CBC.

Poilievre has obviously decided that his best path to victory is in bypassing the media, mobilizing followers to use social channels and attack the messenger.

In the Akin instance that worked, as the apology actually set up the narrative of an aggrieved party that cannot count on reporters to tell the truth.

But Poilievre tried the same tactic in French and he got his clock cleaned.

This mistake will prove a lot more damaging than Poilievre’s decision to bypass the mainstream media in English.

When former Quebec lieutenant Alain Rayes announced he was leaving the party because Poilievre’s leadership was incompatible with his values, Tory trollers were whipped into high gear.

Instead of adopting a conciliatory tone which could have downplayed the departure, the leader came out with fists swinging.

He accused Rayes of refusing to fight Justin Trudeau’s inflation and went on to claim that he had the support of the majority in Rayes’ riding as 53 per cent of the 663 Tory ballots cast there were for Poilievre.

That may be the only time Poilievre gets a majority in Quebec.

His thrashing of a native son did not play well, and his next move was career-shortening.

The leader sent a message to electors in Rayes’ riding, asking them to phone the office of their Member of Parliament to demand his resignation.

When that news became public, the backlash was so horrendous that Poilievre became the one doing the apologizing.

Two apologies in a week marked Poilievre’s public foray as leader.

The announcement of his leadership team, complete with a photo on the steps of the West Block, was also a step backward.

In a team of 10, Poilievre only managed to include two women and one racialized Canadian.

Compare that to the equity cabinet of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. It makes one wonder if the Tories are going back to the future.

Most commentators ignored the paucity of diversity on his team.

But for those of us who care about these issues, the photo was a stark visual reminder that in Poilievre’s party, it is still a man’s world.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By SHEILA COPPS

First published on Monday, October 30, 2017 in The Hill Times.

OTTAWA—Show me the money and I will show you the path to equality.

Just last week, the university sector announced groundbreaking news about a new nation-wide plan to collect and publish data on how each institution is doing when it comes to diversity.

The Action Plan for Inclusive Excellence, a five-year strategy unveiled Thursday by a group representing all Canadian universities, made positive headlines across the country.

The plan includes self-monitoring, and publication of demographic data on faculty, students, and staff. On first blush, it appears to be a robust attempt to tackle the gross financial and tenure discrepancies in the treatment of white men and everyone else in the university sector.

But the further you dig, the more you realize that the universities are being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century.

The unheralded hero of this announcement is actually federal minister Kirsty Duncan.

Last spring, Science Minister Duncan announced a government initiative, the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion plan, which requires universities who want to access Canada Research Chair funding to revamp the way they recruit chair holders. The plan seeks the elimination of unconscious bias, active recruitment of diverse candidates, and continual monitoring for diversity in every step of the selection process.

Duncan gave a Dec. 15 deadline for universities to implement their own plans to improve transparency and diversity objectives, including public posting of their progress. Universities with more than five research chairs will have funding withheld if they fail to meet equity targets in hiring of women, aboriginal and visible minorities and the disabled.

Last week’s announcement was an attempt to collectively meet the challenge that Duncan has placed before the universities.

And given that $265-million in Research Chair money is at stake, the universities had no choice but to tackle the inequities.

Duncan knows first-hand the challenges faced by women and minorities in the university world. Prior to her surprise win in the riding of Etobicoke North, Ont., in 2008, Duncan taught meteorology, climatology and climate change at the University of Windsor and she still serves as an adjunct professor teaching both medical geography at the University of Toronto and global environmental processes at Royal Roads University. Duncan was a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.

Having spent a lifetime as a woman in science, she experienced first-hand the sexism in the Canadian university sector.

Last June, she penned an op-ed piece for The Globe and Mail which served as a stark reminder of the rampant sexism in the university world. Excerpts included this stunning revelation: “When I was teaching at a university, a fellow faculty member shot a question at me during a staff meeting: When did I plan on getting pregnant? On other occasions, I was asked how I wanted to be treated: as a woman or as a scientist. Later, when I asked a university official why I was being paid in the bottom 10th percentile, I was told it was because I was ‘a woman’.”

Move over Harvey Weinstein. The depth and breadth of sexism is not exclusive to Hollywood.

Congratulations to the minister of science for putting the issue squarely on the table. As for the universities, statements on the launch of the diversity plan prompted a few questions.

University of Lethbridge president Mike Mahon, speaking on behalf of the Universities Canada board which he chairs, said the initiative involved “public self-monitoring” which he said would provoke change.

The new initiative involves developing a public national data base which will upload individual university information on race, gender, and ethnicity. Universities already keep individual databases but in most cases, the information collected is neither cross-referenced nor public.

In commenting on the plan, Mahon said the university strategy would also include broadening the pool of diverse students by starting at junior high school. That comment caused some alarm bells to ring, as it suggests that the current diversity deficit is caused by too few applicants from the underrepresented groups.

The minister’s own experience as a scientist clearly demonstrated the solutions are caused by biased university processes, not the paucity of applicants.

Paul Davidson, president of Universities Canada, added the action plan would be transparent “but I don’t think you will see us doing rankings and report cards.”

The minister should push back hard on that one.

Report cards and rankings are exactly how student performance is evaluated. Why shouldn’t universities be subject to similar testing?

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.