Between 2015 and 2019, over 100 Indigenous women from Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Ontario, and Québec publicly asserted that they were survivors of forced or coerced sterilization procedures. The actual number is undoubtedly much higher, and more and more Indigenous women come forward every year to share their traumatic experiences.

No matter how you slice it, the AFN has created a monumental mess that, ironically, proves the very dysfunction many First Nations have been talking about for years. By effectively appointing itself as the judge, jury, and executioner of RoseAnne Archibald’s political career, the organization breached not only her basic human rights but also her basic legal rights to administrative and procedural fairness.

The following is an excerpt from former NDP MP Peggy Nash’s new book, Women Winning Office: An Activist’s Guide to Getting Elected, a practical handbook for activist women on how to open doors and take their place in the political process. Nash draws on her experience in five federal campaigns, as well as the stories of many inspiring Canadian women who have run for office at all levels of government.

While only one in 20 women in Canada are Indigenous, Indigenous women make up half the female population in our federal prisons. Indigenous men are similarly hyper-incarcerated at 31.9 percent. To address this horrific reality, we need to defund and dismantle the penal system, as abolitionists have long made clear. Reforms alone simply won’t cut it, writes Abby Stadnyk.

The recent leak of a draft decision by the US Supreme Court that overrules the iconic abortion rights case Roe v. Wade has reignited the abortion conversation, casting an ominous shadow here in Canada. It is vital for us to focus on the legal, political and societal differences between our two countries and be vigilant to not only preserve but enhance access to reproductive services.

Canada cannot even begin the process of reconciliation until it addresses the ongoing genocide which includes the sexualized violence of Indigenous women and girls by the federal police. The question remains: will the federal government act urgently to ensure not another woman in Canada is violently raped or assaulted by the RCMP? That remains to be seen.

The following is an excerpt from It Should Be Easy to Fix by Bonnie Robichaud, who took her fight against workplace sexual harassment all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada and won. Earlier chapters describe her taking a job in 1977 as a cleaner at the Canadian Forces Base in North Bay, Ontario, and then being sexually harassed over a long period of time by her supervisor Dennis Brennan.

Demanding Equality, the new book from Joan Sangster, argues that Canadian feminism was polyphonic; it was a chorus of diverse political voices rather than solos sung by a few women leaders. It is difficult to distinguish a singular feminist consciousness or movement: rather, groups of feminists fashioned different dreams of equality, freedom, and social transformation.

The following is an excerpt from Bent out of Shape: Shame, Solidarity, and Women’s Bodies at Work by award-winning ergonomist Karen Messing, published by Between the Lines in April 2021. Dr. Messing is a professor of biology at the Université du Québec à Montréal, where she does research in partnership with unions and women’s groups. She was trained in ergonomics and genetics.

Canadians have lately been inundated with reports of sexual assault and misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces. From politicians to establishment feminists to even progressive media outlets, the solution to sexual violence in the CAF has been consistently posited as a “fundamental culture shift.” But how do you shift a culture that is at its core predicated on the exclusive right to carry out state-sponsored violence?