It may also be a reflection of how young men feel they are the forgotten generation. 

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on October 21, 2024.

OTTAWA—It has been 95 years, on Oct. 18, since Canadian women were given the right to vote.

In recognition of that right, the Ottawa chapter of the Famous Five Foundation will celebrate a Pink Tea event at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Oct. 27.

At the ceremony, the foundation will unveil this year’s recipients of the Famous 5 award for their contribution to the fight for equality.

Dozens of other Famous 5 chapters across the country hosted similar events to commemorate Oct. 18, 1929.

That day, a landmark decision by the Privy Council of Great Britain recognized women as persons before the law, thus conferring upon them the right to vote.

The appeal to the British Privy Council followed an unsuccessful campaign in 1928 at the Canadian Senate for women’s right to vote. The effort was led by five Alberta suffragettes who became known as the Famous Five. Their names are Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney, Irene Parlby, and Henrietta Moore Edwards.

The Famous Five is currently the most visited grouping of statues within the Parliamentary Precinct on Wellington Street in Ottawa. The Famous Five Foundation was formed to secure national recognition for those women, and then to fight for recognition of modern-day suffragettes.

At next Sunday’s Pink Tea, five women will be honoured for fighting for Indigenous rights, the rights of Afghan women and others involved in the battle for modern day racial and gender equality, and against misogyny.

The Famous 5 Ottawa will recognize the following award recipients: Mariam Abdel-Akher, Cindy Blackstock, Najia Haneefi, Marie-Noëlle Lanthier, and Christine Romulus for special recognition, each in their own area of expertise.

“These extraordinary women continue to doggedly push the envelope in the face of obstacles and challenges just as the original Famous Five had to do,” said Beatrice Raffoul, chair of Famous 5 Ottawa.

The modern Famous 5 know that much work still has to be done when women in some parts of the world are not even allowed to go to school, and Indigenous women are recovering from the trauma of residential school cultural annihilation.

Canadians think that the fight for equality is over, but one only has to look at the current political situation to understand that we still have much work ahead.

In the upcoming American presidential election, according to an Environics Institute poll published by The Globe and Mail last week, the majority of Canadians prefer the Democratic nominee Kamala Harris over Republican Donald Trump.

But the younger a man is, the more likely he is to support Trump.

Notwithstanding his multiple criminal convictions and Trump’s vehement refusal to accept the 2020 election loss, the former president’s level of support has actually increased since the last election, Environics revealed.

At that time, Trump had the support of 15 per cent of Canadian respondents, and that figure has now increased to 21 per cent. Trump’s greatest level of support comes from young men, and in that cohort, young Conservatives are most likely to support the convicted felon. Conservatives were more likely to support Trump than Harris, with 44 per cent voicing support—an increase of 11 per cent from four years ago.

The vote split in other parties has remained relatively stagnant, with 89 per cent of Bloc Québécois supporters, 85 per cent of Liberals, and 82 per cent of New Democrats preferring Harris over Trump.

The rise in Conservative support for Trump makes one wonder whether the current Democratic candidate’s gender is at play.

Former president Barack Obama hit the campaign trail last week with exactly that message.

He specifically called out Black men for refusing to support Harris simply because she is a woman.

Obama told his audience that while they claimed other reasons for not supporting her, their refusal is based on misogyny because they will not vote for a woman.

Harris is currently working hard to try to bridge that gender divide, reaching out on podcasts and other non-traditional media platforms hosted by men for men.

But, just like in Canada, the gender gap in voting is quite stark in the United States.

Older people and women are supporting Harris, while the younger male generation has been more supportive of Trump.

That the level of misogyny is highest in young voters is troubling. It may also be a reflection of how young men feel they are the forgotten generation.

Some 95 years after Canadian women got the right to vote, we still have a long way to go.

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

If history is any indication, Kamala Harris will face an onslaught of attacks about her gender.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on August 26, 2024.

OTTAWA–Former U.S. president Donald Trump was unusually quiet during the rollout of the Democratic National Convention.

He seemed to be heeding the advice of those who have suggested to the former president that he needs to start debating issues, and to stay away from personalities.

That was the public Trump last week. But the private Trump is not so circumspect. According to multiple news reports, he often refers to his opponent, Vice-President Kamala Harris, as a “bitch.”

Those reports appeared to be confirmed when his former press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, appeared at the Democratic convention to denounce her former boss and tell the world how Trump also mocked his own supporters as “basement dwellers”.

Grisham denounced Trump as someone with “no empathy, no morals, and no fidelity to the truth.”

She recounted a story when the former president visited a hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic, and was upset that cameras were focused on the dying patients, not him.

The Democratic gathering was rife with speakers who opined on why Trump was unsuitable as a commander-in-chief. But some also warned that the love-in people felt at the Chicago, Ill., gathering would quickly turn sour in the uphill battle leading to election day.

Former First Lady Michelle Obama suggested that Harris, the Democratic candidate, would face “ugly, misogynistic, racist lies” in the next 75 days. If history is any indication, she will face an onslaught of attacks. Chances are her gender will be a more popular line of attack than her race.

Trump has already put his foot in his mouth by falsely claiming that Harris is not Black. Trump made the statement in a speech to the National Association of Black Journalists when he drew a shocked reaction after stating, “I’ve known her for long time… and she was always of Indian heritage… I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now, she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”

Trump shut down that line of attack after criticism from Democrats and Republicans.

Harris’ father is Jamaican, and she has consistently embraced her racial identity since joining a historically Black sorority at a historically Black university.

Attacks on her Blackness have been silenced, but we can expect gender name-calling to continue right up to election day on Nov. 5.

It seems that racial epithets are a lot more politically risky than gender slurs.

Just last week, the CBC published a story outlining the shocking level of misogyny facing female politicians on social media. The British-based Centre for Countering Digital Hate published a report stating that Instagram ignored 926 of 1,000 reported abusive comments targeting American female politicians on the app.

The not-for profit monitoring centre focused on comments left on the accounts of 10 politicians, including Harris.

Most were not removed after complaints, including comments like “make rape legal”, “death to her,” and “we don’t want blacks around us.”

Instagram owner Meta has guidelines which allow “stronger conversation” when it involves people like politicians and other public figures who are often in the news.

The Instagram exposé did not surprise those of us who have faced misogyny during and after a life in politics.

On a fairly regular basis, I am insulted when I post or repost items on X. As well as getting death threats and being told to die, I have been attacked as an over-the-hill alcoholic, “Tequila Sheila” hag. The Tequila Sheila name-calling actually came from a moniker given to me by a former Conservative minister.

Former Liberal cabinet minister Catherine McKenna left politics in part because she was tired of the attacks and stalking that she faced as a woman politician. Her office was spray-painted with unprintable insults, and her opponents in the Conservative Party labelled her “climate Barbie” because of her interest in fighting climate change.

Harris has been in politics for a long time, and no doubt will not be cowed by the attacks she will face because of her gender and race.

Obama levelled her own personal attacks during a fiery convention speech, saying Trump may be told “that the job he is currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs’” to a roar of crowd approval.

Trump must be seething over how his presidential trajectory has been reversed since Republicans celebrated his escape from an assassin’s bullet literally days before their convention last month.

Expect Trump supporters to respond with more misogyny on social media.

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

The current bill is a softer version of the 2019 proposal because the government doesn’t want to be accused of stifling free speech. According to Arif Virani, the awful stuff will still be lawful. But now people will have to think twice before telling me to hang myself.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on March 4, 2024.

OTTAWA—Gatineau’s first woman mayor stepped down on Feb. 22, joining 800 other municipal politicians in Quebec who’ve quit, citing death threats and a hostile political climate.

In a tearful press conference, France Bélisle said she had thought long and hard on before making the decision to terminate her two-and-a-half-year term.

Bélisle did not specify the nature of the threats that prompted her departure, but social media is currently a hotbed for vicious attacks.

As a woman, she probably got more than her share of misogyny.

She is not alone. The following is a verbatim message I received last week following one of my posts on Twitter regarding the use of toilets by transgendered individuals. “Sheila, you’re a disgusting, old, ugly, dyke-looking, treasonous piece of shit who should be thrown into the sea with Trudeau. Fuck you, Fuck Trudeau & the LGBT+ pride freaks. Rap the sick LGBT flag around your neck, tie it to a tree branch, and do humanity a favor. Can’t wait for Freedom/Justice Convoy.”

The federal government finally stepped in last week to introduce legislation governing online harms. Justice Minister Arif Virani specifically targeted three obligations, including “a duty to protect children, a duty to act responsibly and the duty to remove the most egregious content.”

Virani was surrounded by supporters of the proposed legislation, including mothers of teenagers on both coasts whose daughters were bullied online to the point where they committed suicide.

The proposed legislation is far narrower than an earlier version tabled in 2019.

The original bill died when the election was called.

The updated version includes the creation of a digital safety commission, a five-person panel with the power to enforce the rules. The commission would also provide a venue for investigation of complaints about online violations targeted at bullying children and/or posting private images without consent.

Carol Todd, the mother of Amanda Todd, a British Columbia teenager who committed suicide because of online threats, said the legislation was a long time coming.

She was joined at the press conference by the mother of Nova Scotia teen Rehtaeh Parsons. According to Leah Parsons, her daughter was driven to her death after being gang-raped and having the images posted online.

The proposed law requires social media platforms to have mechanisms in place to remove two kinds of offensive material: that which sexually victimizes children, and the posting of intimate images without consent.

Platforms have 24 hours to remove offending posts or face financial punishments. Fines are to be linked to the size and profitability of the platforms.

Virani insists the legislation would not affect free speech on the internet, however awful it might be. So social media attacks on politicians like the former mayor of Gatineau will not likely be stopped.

However, the newly-created commission will have the power to oversee the legislation, which will also mean that hate speech on the internet will be facing legal scrutiny and review.

The former Facebook data scientist who went public on its refusal to delete nefarious content endangering children lauded the proposed legislation.

Interviewed on CTV, Frances Haugen said it was among the best pieces of legislation on the matter she has seen.

But that didn’t stop Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre from opposing the legislation before he had even read it.

Poilievre immediately labelled it “Justin Trudeau’s latest attack on free speech,” and characterized the legislation as “woke authoritarian agenda.”

Social media opponents moved quickly online to post pictures of the Liberal Party covered in a Nazi flag, claiming the legislation is a first step toward a takeover of the whole country.

Poilievre attacked the prime minister personally, saying because Trudeau partied in “blackface” he had no right to speak on the issue of hate speech.

He vowed to kill the bill before it was introduced, but was silent following Virani’s press conference.

Poilievre himself has spoken out in support of a Senate bill that would require online age verification to access pornography, so he obviously sees some benefit in protecting minors on the internet.

It is impossible to see how his party would benefit from opposing this bill, but apparently his hatred of the prime minister appears to be more politically motivating than hate speech on the internet.

The current bill is a softer version of the 2019 proposal precisely because the government does not want to fall prey to accusations of stifling free speech.

According to Virani, the awful stuff will still be lawful.

But now people will have to think twice before telling me to hang myself.

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

There has to be a reasonable way for elected representatives to receive police protection when necessary.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 5, 2022.

OTTAWA—Former energy minister Marc Lalonde used to be accompanied by armed guards when he visited Alberta back in 1980.

As the minister responsible for the introduction of the National Energy Program, he and then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau were hated by many Albertans.

“Let the eastern bastards freeze in the dark” was a popular Alberta bumper sticker in the seventies.

Stephen Harper, in his pre-prime ministerial days, advocated for a firewall around Alberta, including a withdrawal from Medicare and the Canada Pension Plan, and replacement of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police by a provincial force.

Today, a major candidate for the United Conservative Party leadership is calling for Alberta sovereignty.

All this animus is not the result of social media or a twisted citizen. It is a political strategy practiced by some politicians to gain favour with constituents.

Hate sells. Just ask Donald Trump. Divisive campaign slogans drive votes. And if you can convince citizens that a politician from another party is an interloper, that is a guaranteed vote in your corner.

It may be a little rich for politicians who specialize in division to disavow the traitorous and misogynistic claims of an Albertan couple attacking Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland.

Dog whistle politics sends a message out to ordinary citizens. The message is simple: it is okay to attack a politician from another province or party because they are not one of us. They are enemies out to plunder our fields and steal our oil.

Ironically, Freeland was born in Alberta.

As for the misogynistic slur directed at the minister, that should come as no surprise.

The good news about social media is that people can now be filmed saying horrible things, and risk being exposed for the miscreants that they are.

But the content is nothing new.

I was called a slut in the House of Commons. And that didn’t come from a random passerby, the insult was from the mouth of another Member of Parliament in the middle of a heated debate.

I was stalked by a constituent who had already been arrested for attacking a journalist. He entered Hamilton City Hall with a magazine bearing the image of a soldier carrying an Uzi, and slammed it on my mother’s desk. She was an alderman at the time, and he swore at her, and said that was the gun he was going to use to kill me.

I called the RCMP, which was responsible for ministerial protective details. Its local detachment was closed for the weekend, so early the next week, an officer got in touch to discourage me from pressing charges, claiming this action was clearly only the work of one crazy person.

I insisted, and when charges were laid, it was discovered that the individual had already stabbed a journalist.

Regular death threats, and a brick through my office window were common. My provincial counterpart, New Democrat Bob Mackenzie, suffered the firebombing of his office. The perpetrator, an angry constituent, was never arrested.

Those incidents occurred in one riding in one city in Canada.

Threats to politicians are nothing new. It will only be a matter of time before someone’s verbal attacks go deadly.

The government has ordered a review of Freeland’s security. But it should actually undertake a review of security measures for all Members of Parliament, especially when they are outside of Ottawa. Round-the-clock security may not be the answer, but there has to be a reasonable way for elected representatives to receive police protection when necessary.

An angry constituent can quickly turn into a dangerous constituent.

And the level of respect that used to be afforded politicians of all political stripes has gone by the wayside.

People think nothing of parading a Fuck Trudeau poster in their truck window or on their property. That is not against the law, but violent language can lead to violence.

The number of Canadians embracing the rhetoric of the Ottawa anti-vaxx occupiers is truly disturbing. Those politicians who align themselves with anti-democracy movements are also contributing to the problem.

Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre characterized the Freeland attack as “unacceptable” and said he has hired a private security firm to protect his wife from social media attacks.

But Poilievre’s whole campaign has been based on the same dynamic of people versus elites.

With the advent of social media, everyone is a critic. Civil discourse is past history.

But politicians who use venom as their tool of choice must bear some of the responsibility.

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 April 30, 2018 in The Hill Times.

OTTAWA—Misogyny lives. And the internet is giving it too much oxygen.

While Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is being called to account by governments around the world for political misuse of social media intel, a bigger issue looms in cyberspace.

Normal platforms of discourse are governed by legal restraints which serve to cool down the rhetoric that can come from unfettered anonymity. Slander, libel and anti-hate laws serve to make people think before they speak, write or act. Not so for tweets and social media postings.

The kind of bilious outrage that is common on the internet would be outlawed in traditional newspapers and television.

The internet is the modern-day equivalent of the Wild West, with like-minded bandits, terrorists and incels getting together to cultivate a venomous sense of brotherhood.

Hate speech is given free rein on the web, and communities connected by common deviance are rapidly mushrooming. They thrive in the dark web with little public knowledge or exposure. Underground chat groups provide blanket anonymity, encouraging deviants and misfits to group together into cells of like-minded outsiders who do not even have to use their own names to make common cause against the world.

From jihadists to white supremacists, from incels to pedophiles, they derive comfort in the belief that they are part of a bigger movement and form a community.

Their hate-mongering would be illegal in other fora. So it is about time the purveyors of social media put their mouth where their money is. Anonymity in social media should be outlawed.

An international convention to ban internet hate speech would be a good place for world governments to start. That initiative should be accompanied by national laws outlawing anonymity and hate speech in social media communications. And social media owners should be responsible for the content their platforms create.

Last week Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly joined with the Canada Council for the Arts in announcing a series of initiatives to support harassment-free workplaces in the arts. She vowed to deny funding to organizations that fail to provide such a workplace.

The initiative is an important one. But it pales in comparison to the looming challenges of the virtual workplace. One should not preclude the other but the government would be well-advised to launch targetted public discussions about how to achieve a harassment-free internet.

The tragic events in Toronto last week shone a light into the depth of misogyny that festers and is fostered in the deep net.

Like many, I had never heard of the incel movement. But the more I learn about it, the more I fear that with these movements growing by the day, misogyny will never be stamped out.

According to an investigative piece in Elle magazine, incel is an underground movement of disgruntled men who blame women for their incapacity to form lasting relationships.

Until it was shut down last November, internet purveyor Reddit provided a safe place for misogynists to gather and spew hate. The site posted this proviso to warn users “Normies are allowed to post here, but do note that many incels are generally hostile to normies; tread carefully. Blackpill: A subjective term used to describe the real or perceived socially unspoken realizations that come from being a long-time incel. This sidebar will certainly be revised every now and again.”

Reddit boasted 40,000 registered members in its incel chat group. The real numbers are much higher because that figure does not include visitors who monitor the site without establishing their own accounts.

The now-infamous Facebook posting of Alek Minassian was linked to incel chat rooms. He conferred high praise upon the self-described “supreme gentleman” Californian Elliot Rodger, who murdered six people and injured 14 others before killing himself.

Minassian appears to have replicated Rodger’s massacre, right down to motive. In Rodger’s pre-massacre suicide note, he claims his murders were designed to “punish all females for the crime of depriving me of sex”. He also uploaded a YouTube video explaining why.

Minassian claims similar victimization status on his postings. After the murders, Facebook deleted the Minassian account, but that is not enough. A current posting on Incel.me says that women should be like cattle, enslaved to service men’s sexual desires.

The oversight of hate speech must be expanded and included in a legislated, legal framework.

The only way to stop poison spewing from hate sites is to shut them down and deny the cover of anonymity to potential perpetrators.

That would be a noble outcome of the horrific Toronto tragedy.

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