Having said that, we have a long way to go. There’s a lot of male energy that comes into play. Women are still treated differently. Even in the business arena, there are more men who are appointed to be the experts.
We have to keep calling it for what it is, and we need to keep asserting ourselves in a way that allows for the female voices to be heard above that fray. A women’s voice can bring a better way in which we can create a better planet, a better environment, and better businesses that are more attuned to creating a better future for our children for the next generations. It’s that maternal instinct to protect that, for me, has been the strength. If we could put our forces together in a balanced way, then I think we would have a better future.
What message would you put on a billboard?
“Intentions have to be followed by concrete actions.”
Sandra Wear
“Canada needs more moxie and more swagger, and less modesty.”
Birthplace Madrid, Spain
What age do you feel 25
Occupation Go-to-Market for New Tech or New Markets
Book you gift most Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Favourite drink Bourbon, straight, on the rocks
Favourite place in Canada Home—Vancouver
How has your view of feminism changed over your lifetime?
Our unconscious bias of what we believe are female versus male characteristics constrains and limits all genders. For example, we still believe women are more emotional and talk more, yet studies show that men dominate the conversation. I used to be more frustrated when I wasn’t heard. Now I try to wait until the end to speak, and I try to shine a light on inequitable behaviour regardless of the driver.
I’ve always considered myself a feminist, and am unclear as to why someone would say they aren’t: it’s about the equal treatment of women and men. We thought we had achieved equity a long time ago—kind of like making it halfway up the mountain and saying “that’s it, we’ve reached the top,” and there’s still the summit to climb. Moreover, we forget the many women and men who came before us so that we would have the rights we have. It’s a disservice to them, to the sacrifices they made, to forget, as well as to not continue.
What will it take to achieve gender parity?
Women in tech experience what women in all fields that are male-dominated experience: inequity. A lack of confidence, inability to support each other and integrate themselves. We need to invite men to the table, and we need to invite ourselves to the tables with men. We also need to require certain minimums, just as we do for wages. You need to have a 50 percent goal over a few years, starting with 20 and phasing increase over time. The “best people for the job” approach doesn’t cut it, for two main reasons: 1) there is no way that having 100 percent or close of men in leadership positions means you can’t find women of comparable skill set, and 2) the proof is indisputable: teams do better when they’re diverse.
What has been a defining moment in your personal or professional life?
Without a doubt, the building of my first company. The ability to start something from nothing, to forge your own path, to create and to produce. To interface between what the market needs and then work with teams to solve it. It also showed me what was possible with a small, strong team: magic. And how you could build on that magic to create something impactful for the long term.
If you were to get a tattoo of one word, what would it be?
“Why?”
Hayley Wickenheiser
“There is a lot of fight in this world and there is a lot of right in this world. I choose to be inspired by both.”
Birthplace Shaunavon, SK
What age do you feel 22
Occupation Global hockey ambassador, Wick Hockey president and CEO
Book you gift most Anything by Robert Munsch
Favourite drink Smoothies
Favourite place in Canada The Rocky Mountains, near my home
What will it take to achieve gender parity?
Consistency in so many aspects. Consistency in message across mediums and from our leaders—political, social, and influencers. Consistency in actions—from the most grassroots level in our own kitchens and living rooms to our boardrooms. Women taking on leadership roles, owning them with confidence, and being supported in those roles not just by men, but by their fellow women. Consistency over time and space. True, fundamental pattern changes take time and commitment. We can’t expect immediate change and then walk away from the cause; we have to remain committed, remain honest, and remain driven.
Tell us about a time when you had to summon all of your courage.
Making the final decision to retire and pursue other parts of who I am took a lot of courage. I’ve always been a hockey player. It’s been so much at the core of who I am, so I had to make a very conscious effort to redefine myself, start a new journey of self-discovery even before I made the actual final decision. I’d like to tell you that exact moment was something glamorous or particularly momentous, but it wasn’t. The final decision was made, and the email was sent, while I was sitting in my friend’s basement mulling over my future, wearing a ball cap after a workout. We went out for a beer afterward and I went home. That was it. A week or two later, I sent a tweet to make it public—from an airplane on my way to a speaking gig while surrounded by strangers who had no idea what was happening right next to them... I was changing my life course. The tweet said, “Dear Canada. It has been the great honour of my life to play for you. Time to hang ’em up!! Thank you! #grateful #graduationday #canada”
What gives you courage?
Seeing what people who truly need courage can get through. I am inspired every day by children who fight cancer, like my friend Grace, who passed away last year; by people who have to fight their own bodies to achieve great physical acts; by people who have to fight their own government to do what we take for granted; by people who fight mental illness, who fight for equality, who fight for the rights of others.
If you were to write a book, what would its title be?
“Buck It”: How My #Buckit List Started with Them Saying Little Girls Couldn’t Skate.
How has your view of feminism changed over your lifetime?
Maybe at one time I thought feminism was about “sticking it to the man” and showing the world that a woman can do anything a man can do. It was combative and a little anger-filled. Nowadays, it’s more that a woman can do anything. Full stop. I don’t need to include the “that a man can do” part of the sentence. It’s unnecessary because that’s become obvious in our culture and in my own maturity. It’s not a competition of the sexes—it’s about being given the space and opportunity to be the best person you are.
What has become more important and less important to you in the last few years?
What’s become more important is what the people I love know of me and what’s become less important is what others believe of me.
Where do you feel most powerful?
I would have once said I felt most at ease in the world on the ice, but today I’d say I feel the most powerful in my own skin.
What is the best investment you’ve made?
Hands down—the time I’ve spent with my son.
If you were to get a tattoo of one word, what would it be?
“Resilience.”
Faye Wightman
“Being Canadian means living in a land with many blessings.”
Birthplace Creston, BC
What age do you feel 59
Occupation Interim Executive Director, Canadian Cancer Society, BC and Yukon
Book you gift most Boundaries by Henry Cloud and John Townsend
Favourite drink Vodka tonic
Favourite place in Canada Old Montreal
How has your view of feminism changed over your lifetime?
I am less overtly driven by feminism now. I don’t feel a need to respond to everything that challenges my rights as a female in Canada. I can now t
hink of the bigger picture and how we need to change society overall, not only individual circumstances. I am more aware of my role as a model and mentor for younger women, and how important it is to share with them where we were decades ago in relation to where we are today and how far we still have to go.
Tell us about a time when you had to summon all of your courage.
I decided to marry, against my parents’ wishes, a black man from the West Indies in 1970. I had never felt my parents to be prejudiced, but when I announced we were going to get married, they disowned me and would have nothing to do with me for a number of years. My siblings were supportive but not my parents. It was devastating and affected my trust in my parents to be there for me.
What has been a defining moment in your personal or professional life?
I endured three years of severe physical and psychological abuse by my physician husband before he made a serious attempt on my life when I was thirty years old. I developed sepsis and nearly died from poison-induced organ failure. The authorities found out what he had done and he committed suicide before he was arrested, leaving me a widow with two small children. I changed at that time. I refused to be defined as a victim, I recognized how fragile life can be, and I determined that I would not be afraid to try new things in life. I believed then, as I do now, that I had been given a second chance to use all the God-given talents I had to make a difference in the world.
What does Canada need more and less of?
More respect for both Indigenous and immigrant populations, and less poverty in a wealthy country.
If you were to write a book, what would its title be?
Bruised but Not Broken: Surviving and Thriving.
If you were to get a tattoo of one word, what would it be?
“Courage.”
Lorelei Williams
“We need to take our power back.”
Birthplace Mission, BC
What age do you feel 28 forever
Occupation Women’s Coordinator at the Vancouver Aboriginal Community Policing Centre
Book you gift most The Colonial Problem by Lisa Monchalin
Favourite place in Canada Niagara Falls—it was one place my mom wanted to go to before she passed away
How has your view of feminism changed over your lifetime?
I actually never knew much about feminism before—I had no idea how bad it was for Indigenous women and girls until I created Butterflies in Spirit, a dance troupe that commemorates the female victims of violence in Vancouver and across Canada.
I was lucky that I got a job that required me to work with women in the Downtown Eastside. I was basically thrown into it at Ground Zero at Main and Hastings. The more work I did, the more women and the more families of missing and murdered women I got to interact with, and the more speeches I did, the more I realized this was a huge issue. My eyes are wide open now.
Tell us about a time when you had to summon all of your courage.
My mom passed away five days before Butterflies in Spirit’s first performance on April 30, 2012, in front of the Wally Oppal inquiry. I knew that my mom would want me to go on with it—her sister is one of the missing. My mom died from alcoholism. She drank to numb the pain of all her abuses and especially the abuses in residential schools. We sang the women warrior song at the end of the performance, the song that was sung to my mom while she was dying.
What will it take to achieve gender parity?
Women leaders in all the countries. If there were more women running these countries, there wouldn’t be war. Even in our own Indigenous culture, it was the women who were the matriarchs. We need to take our power back.
What does being Canadian mean to you?
Canada is hiding deep, dark secrets of what they did to our children—the children of Canada. I had to grow up ashamed of my culture and I’m trying to get that back now, but I’ve lost it. I’m trying to expose my kids to it, but it’s really hard because our people are dying off. There are fewer than five people who fluently speak the language on my reserve. My vision for Canada is for our languages, cultures, songs, dances, and people to come back strong, and for us to get our lands back. For violence against our women and girls to end. It needs to end here so we can set an example around the world because we’re a first-world country and this shouldn’t be happening here, or anywhere for that matter.
What message would you put on a billboard?
“Less Ego, More Love.”
Gid7ahl-Gudsllaay Lalaxaaygans
Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson
“The journey to success is perpetual, as true success can only be achieved through inner peace that radiates outwards to bring others along in the journey.”
Birthplace Haida Gwaii, BC
What age do you feel 40
Occupation Lawyer, recording artist, and recently completed a large exhibition of photographic montages
Book you gift most Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida by J. Swanton
Favourite drink Coffee
Favourite place in Canada Haida Gwaii
If you could have dinner with any woman, alive or dead, who would it be?
My great-grandmother Susan Williams, because she lived until she was 109 and endured incredible change arising from colonization, and yet still instilled in her children a love for that which colonization suppressed: culture and musical traditions.
What will it take to achieve gender parity?
We will not achieve gender parity because we are not equal. As a Haida woman and part of a matrilineal society, I recognize that each gender has unique strengths and gifts to contribute. Women have astounding gifts that outshine men in many areas, but the opposite is true as well. If, however, we want to address economic gender parity, we need to transform Canada’s relationship with the earth, upon which the Canadian economy is based. When we see the earth as a feminine and nurturing being, and not as resources for exploitation, we will have started the necessary transformation of humanity’s underlying relationship with—and respect for—the feminine and women.
Tell us about a time when you had to summon all of your courage.
Appearing before the Supreme Court of Canada in 1996, representing the Haida Nation to protect the old-growth forests of Haida Gwaii. There were many Indigenous nations present, and one of them shared a song that morning. I didn’t know the meaning of the song, but in that moment I felt the pain of colonization of all past generations of Indigenous peoples. I was moved to tears and excused myself to the ladies’ room. I summoned my courage by telling myself that I didn’t come this far to cry in the bathroom. I also reduced my self-imposed pressure by realizing that no matter what—win or lose—the Haida Nation would protect the forests of Haida Gwaii. We succeeded in that litigation, and it is the leading case on accommodation with respect to Indigenous title in Canada.
If you were to get a tattoo of one word, what would it be?
I have a tattoo of my husband’s art, called “Raven Stretched Out,” and it is a statement about how resources are increasingly stretched beyond sustainable limits.
Puglaas
Jody Wilson-Raybould
“True reconciliation is not just the work of governments, nor is it just the work of Indigenous peoples. It involves every Canadian.”
Birthplace Vancouver, BC
Occupation Member of Parliament for Vancouver-Granville, Minister of Justice, and Attorney General of Canada
Book you gift most I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven
Favourite place in Canada Cape Mudge—the West Coast!
When do you feel most powerful?
I feel most empowered when I am surrounded by smart, passionate colleagues, constituents, and Canadians, as we work together toward shared goals. I am happiest when I can roll up my sleeves and work with others to craft innovative and effective solutions to tough problems.
What is your vision for Canada in the next twenty years?
While there is much to be prou
d of in our great country, my vision for the next twenty years—in fact, the next 150 years—is for Canada to move toward and achieve true reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. I see a Canada where Indigenous peoples have rebuilt their nations. Where Indigenous peoples are self-governing with practising and thriving languages and cultures, within a strong, prosperous, and united Canada. This work is about the recognition of Indigenous peoples’ rights, it is about respect, and it is about partnership.
What does being Canadian mean to you?
Wherever we live and whoever we are—no matter how we are governed—as Canadians we all expect that our governments will be respectful of the principles and values upon which our country was founded. We expect our government to respect these values as we continue to develop the very idea and concept of Canada—as a beacon of hope and optimism in a world increasingly shrouded in conflict and division. For me, core Canadian values include kindness and generosity, a strong work ethic, trust, respect, and integrity.
What will it take to achieve gender parity?
While there is plenty of work to be done, I firmly believe that we can achieve gender parity if individuals of all genders are treated with equal respect and dignity. I am very proud of the work our government is doing to uphold the rights of all Canadians. It is an honour to serve in a cabinet in which there are not only an equal number of men and women, but talented individuals from a wide array of backgrounds who reflect the rich diversity of this great country. I hope our government can serve as a positive example of how Canada and its institutions can be stronger because of our diversity, not in spite of it.
Canada 150 Women_Conversations with Leaders, Champions, and Luminaries Page 27