Ladyfolks and the Canadian Election

So as the Canadian election day gets closer, one can draw some serious patterns of this campaign.

1- Attack ads are all the rage with the Cons. Paging Stephen Harper: A little creativity never hurt. Ask Jack Layton.

2- Every party seems to have an obsession with the image of Stephane Dion shrugging.

3- The only mention of womyn is... wait...there's been mention of womyn?!

There is a complete and total absence of ladyfolk in this current election campaign. There are only a few days left and so I highly doubt we're going to be inundated with a load of womyn-friendly mention and discussion. Sadly I think it's safe to say that womyn have been completely written off the election.

Case and Point: During the French language debate, the word woman-women-girls-female was not mentioned once.

During the English language debate, at 9:19pm Jack Layton spoke of how lack of employment and poverty affects all sectors of Canadian society, specifically womyn. I nearly wet myself I was so excited. THEN at 10:57pm, a whopping 3 mins before the end of the debate, Stephane Dion mentions briefly that his party has put a universal day care plan into their platform.

Now don't get me wrong, I was impressed with some other things that didn't specifically discuss womyn. Layton went on a rant at one point about the plight of Aboriginal peoples in this country and went beyond tired metaphors to bring up real issues like crowded housing, high rates of incarceration and boil water advisories. That was mighty impressive.

And the zinger of the debates, in my opinion, went to Gilles Duceppe in the English debates when he said "You know what's really shocking? The only party that's pushing for a by-Canada plan for the manufacturing sector is the Bloc Quebecois!"

Oooooh the irony.

But beside the occasional mention in debates, there was a whole lotta nothing going on for womyn's issues during the election. Womyn were mentioned briefly at the beginning of the election campaign but only in the form of Harper repeating that "He will not re-open the abortion debate". Wooo.

So as we head to the polls on October 14th, try to think special thoughts about Canada's ladyfolk. Because if you don't, nobody will.