Every September, for the past several years, I have been getting together with women who played on my high school basketball team a half-century ago. 

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 15, 2025.

OTTAWA—Fifty years of friendship, and still going strong.

Every September, for the past several years, I have been getting together with the women who played on my high school basketball team a half-century ago.

They were winners then, and they are winners now. Every couple of years, we take a longer trip than our usual three-day lake getaway.

Three years ago, we landed in Prince Edward Island on the eve of Hurricane Fiona. Our plans to see Rick Mercer at the Confederation Centre and to eat copious amounts of lobster were all blown away when the lights went out on the island for several days.

But like good former Girl Guides, when handed these lemons, we made lemonade.

During the storm, we huddled in the living room far away from the windows to avoid the possibility of any smashing glass hitting us.

A giant tree cracked in half in the backyard of our century-old holiday home, and we peered out the window to bear witness to the damage.

Thankfully, it fell perpendicular to residences in the area, and simply lay grounded in forlorn glory, a witness to the power of Mother Nature.

The next day, we roamed the streets, in awe of the massive damages left in the wake of the storm. But we sighed with relief as there was no loss of life.

We got T-shirts printed with “We survived Fiona,” and bragged to our friends back home about how brave we were.

Fiona was one of the many adventures we have shared together.

But the most important adventure is the chance to compare notes on our changing lives.

The changes are not just personal, they are also global.

As basketball afficionados, we get into discussions about how to deal with the gender issues facing sport, our favourite subject.

We are all thrilled to see the emergence of women’s professional sports teams, something that we could never have envisioned in the years we went undefeated as Bishop Ryan High School regional champions in Hamilton, Ont.

Unlike the boys, when we were young, there was no chance of actually making a career in the sport we loved because beyond college games, there was zero to look forward to.

Today, we have women competing in soccer, hockey, and basketball, and their audience reach—including television spectators—is enormous.

The rules have also changed.

When it comes to gender, much has been written recently about trans women competing in female sports.

Our coach, Cecilia Carter-Smith, didn’t have to worry about trans competition when she competed in the Commonwealth Games in Jamaica in 1966. Instead, she had to worry about proving that she was a woman.

There was no DNA testing in those days, so in order to qualify for her track events, she was ushered into a room, stripped down and made to cover her naked self with a sheet, while two men entered the room. Their assignment: to prove the existence of her breasts and vagina.

Without visual confirmation by men, she could not compete.

In the next Games, they developed a swab test. To this day, Coach (as we still affectionately call her) carries a card in her wallet that reads as follows: “On the occasion of The IX British Commonwealth Games held in Edinburgh (Scotland) in July 1970, Mademoiselle Cecilia Smith…from Canada…has had a buccal smear examined which was found to be sex chromotin positive. This satisfies the requirements for competition in women’s events.”

Chromosome tests ruled in those days, and as far as Coach is concerned, that should still be the case. She does not support transgendered women being allowed to compete with other females because their birth chromosomes as males give them an advantage.

Smith cited a famous swimming case in the United States when a young freshman competed as a man, transitioned to female, and then returned to university to swim as a woman. Lia Thomas won the national women’s freestyle 500-metre in 2022 before being banned from competing against other women by World Aquatics.

Thomas lost a legal challenge to the prohibition, but her case became a touchstone in the transgender debate.

Our coach supports the expulsion decision by World Aquatics, saying the capacity of Thomas’ lungs did not change when she changed her gender, therefore her body composition and size gives her an unfair gender-based edge in competition against other women.

Some of the rules that we faced 50 years ago are worth throwing out.

But when it comes to sport, the swab test affirming gender stands the test of time.

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

Most confused Canadians received the payment with no explanation. If they already receive direct deposit payments, the climate bonus arrived with a simple annotation: Climate Action Incentive Plan. Talk about a missed opportunity.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on January 22, 2024.

OTTAWA—Last week, 80 per cent of Canadians found a new year’s bonus us in their bank accounts.

The surprise deposit came from a quarterly rebate which is part of the federal government’s pollution pricing program to tackle climate change.

The numbers are impressive.

According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, the average family of four in Alberta received $386, followed by Saskatchewan with $340, and Newfoundland and Labrador at $328.

Manitobans received $264, with Nova Scotia, Ontario and Prince Edward Island netting $248, $244 and $240 respectively. New Brunswickers received $184.

That was a quarterly, tax-free payment from the Climate Action Incentive Program destined to buffer the adjustment to the price on carbon prompted by an effort to reduce greenhouse gases.

Most confused Canadians received the payment without any explanation.

If they are already receiving direct deposit payments, the climate bonus arrived with a simple annotation: Climate Action Incentive Plan.

Talk about a missed communications’ opportunity. Most Canadians don’t have an idea what CAIP is. Somebody in government should have been able to come up with a sexier moniker to explain the new price on pollution.

A name like POP, price on pollution, would have served to refute the Conservative claim that this is a carbon tax.

Most Canadians don’t make money from a tax.

But the rollout was so quiet that many people were calling their banks to find out whether a mistaken deposit had been made.

The silent deposits were a missed moment to refute the narrative that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been peddling all year on his carbon tax.

He may be using unorthodox methods like YouTube videos and other social outreach measures, but compare that to the work of the government.

Why did nobody even write a letter to all climate action recipients explaining the basics of why they were getting the money, and how it would help them offset increased costs associated with the price on pollution?

The supply chain is facing hikes in transportation costs which ultimately get transferred to the consumer. Fuel, especially home heating, is also facing a hit.

But a payment that in some cases will amount to more than $1,500 a year should ease the pain. Poilievre has promised to cancel this payment should he form government.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau brought some new faces into cabinet last fall, with the specific aim of upping the communications game.

He also brought in a new director of communications, which some saw as a signal that he was finally going to get serious in combatting the Conservative storyline.

Some new faces have been very successful in getting out their individual messages, but when a government is floundering in the polls, ministerial announcements simply won’t be enough to turn the tide.

Instead, the government needs to invest real cash in explaining to Canadians what is at stake.

We have a planet that is burning itself up by the use of fossil fuels, and governments around the world are working to try to reduce carbon consumption.

A price on pollution is the way that the Canadian government has chosen in an effort to move the dial toward carbon reduction.

The quarterly rebate is an attempt to protect more vulnerable Canadians from the financial hit they could face because of pollution pricing.

Everyone needs to do their part, but getting a quarterly cheque from the government is not a bad political move.

If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody hears, did it really fall?

If a payment goes into your bank account with no explanation, did the government really send it?

The fact that people had no idea how this money ended up in their bank accounts is proof positive that the Liberal communications strategy needs an enema.

Either the government gets serious about using paid means, including major advertising and direct communication with each taxpayer, or the Liberals might as well cede the next election.

They have a great story to tell. But the old way of ministerial announcements is outdated and ineffective.

In the last century, when families received the baby bonus cheque to help with family expenses, the payment went directly to women and was clearly marked “Baby Bonus.”

Pretty hard to mistake that payment. That was a program that people still remember.

Now is the time to POP the question. Are Canadians ready to help in the battle to put a Price on Pollution?

The answer is yes. But the question has not even been asked.

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

One certainty remains. The community spirit of Prince Edward Islanders and other devastated Atlantic Canadians cannot be destroyed.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on October 3, 2022.

OTTAWA—Not too many people are foolish enough to fly into a hurricane. Most people focus their efforts on trying to get away from them.

But last week, I joined the ranks of the storm watchers, those slightly twisted meteorologic amateurs who like to fly into the eye of the storm.

In my case, the trip had nothing to do with weather.

Instead, my high school basketball team planned a week-long girls’ reunion on Prince Edward Island, the starting date of which just happened to coincide with the arrival of post-tropical storm Fiona.

The team, which started playing together back in 1967, never gave a moment’s thought to cancelling the trip. After all, we are fighters, part of a high school girls’ squad that could beat anything.

Our multi-year undefeated record was testament to that as our coach, Cecilia Carter-Smith, reminded us when the storm battered our two-storey lodging.

We arrived in beautiful downtown Charlottetown a few hours before Fiona landed.

I flew in on an Air Canada turbo-prop from Ottawa, and midway through the flight, we hit a series of air pockets that literally got my praying for my life.

The 78-seater Q-400 flew at 35,000-feet, smack into the middle of headwinds that were a precursor of Fiona’s flight to Canada.

When the flight began, we were warned about potential turbulence by the captain. He wasn’t kidding. The plane was tossed from the top down and from side to side like a badminton shuttlecock.

At one point, the nose started to veer sideways with one wing leaning higher by the minute.

Luckily for everyone on the plane, the pilot was skilled enough to handle the challenge. Within about 20 minutes, he had permission to fly down to 15,000 feet which cut the buffeting considerably.

During those frightening minutes, you could hear a pin drop. Everyone appeared to keep silent counsel. For my part, I was repeating the rosary and trying to forget the fact that my grandmother died in a plane crash.

My mind was filled with doom and gloom, but prayer pushed it out until, finally, the plane descended to a more comfortable altitude.

The pilot finally broke the silence, calmly advising everyone what we already knew. The worst was over and we were now on a manageable flight path.

Upon arrival in Charlottetown, our team was commiserating on whether the hurricane would even happen or whether this was just a hyped-up storm prediction that would not materialize.

Just to be on the safe side, we ordered three pizzas, which turned out to be a good move as in the wake of Fiona, we had no electricity and no way of actually feeding ourselves as all restaurants were in the same powerless situation.

We were staying in one of the century-old homes owned by the Great George Hotel, a fabulous downtown heritage property which is just like a second home.

Our edifice was just down the street and our bedrooms were on the second floor. I was facing north, right in the windy path of Fiona’s wrath. The wind howled and the rain pelted, but it wasn’t until an ancient tree towering over the building was cracked by the storm that we began to worry.

In the end, two giant trees were felled on both sides of our house, but by the grace of God, neither of their oversized trunks hit the building.

We emerged unscathed the following morning, only to be confronted with the hard evidence of Fiona’s massive destruction in every community on the island.

Everyone was pitching in to help with the cleanup. In one instance, a family of 11, whose roof was decapitated by Fiona, was offered free lodging by the Murphy clan, generous owners of the Great George. The lodgings allowed them some respite from the elements while they hatched a plan to rebuild their home.

Neighbours pitched in to help neighbours, and no one was left wanting for food or water.

It truly was a community effort as the rebuilding began.

When we left the island almost a week later, there were still swathes of the province without power, and electricity crews were working double overtime trying to restore some form of normalcy.

Some natural wonders, like the dunes in the Prince Edward Island National Park and Teacup Rock, may never come back.

Other losses, like the iconic 100-year-old trees throughout the province, will be replaced. One certainty remains. The community spirit of Prince Edward Islanders and other devastated Atlantic Canadians cannot be destroyed.

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