This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
The War Room WARREN KINSELLA


Taming the Testosterone Y


ou should never trust Wikipedia as a source for anything, in my experience – any “en- cyclopedia” that lets just anyone write for


it has the credibility of a graffiti wall – but I was flummoxed. Stumped. Stymied. Stopped, even. My editor had told me the focus of this edi-


tion of Campaigns and Elections would be the role of women in Canadian political backrooms. Good idea, said I.


Sounds interesting. So I turned to


Wikipedia to provide a comprehensive list of fe- male campaign consultants in Canuckistan.


art-Olsen; and the Liberal’s Susan Murray. That’s it. Where was the Grits’ Deb Roberts, or Jill


Fairbrother, or Chaviva Hosek, or Sheila James (gone, but not forgotten)?


The Tories’ Jenni


Byrne, Deb Hutton, Sandra Buckler, Kel- lie Leitch, Louise Harris or Krista Scaldwell? The many, many female New Democrats’ who went from backrooms to elected positions of importance, at the federal and provincial levels? Where were they? Now, I know what you’re thinking. Wiki- pedia isn’t very credible, so why get all worked up about it? The online encyclopedia has been infamously wrong, many times in the past (eg. soccer star David Beckham was described in one memorable Wiki biography as Eighteenth Century Chinese athlete; a British rock star was declared to have a fondness for eating hamsters in pubs; infamously, a USA Today columnist was fingered for the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers, while having been a pallbearer for one of them; and, in my own case, I was blamed for the sponsorship scandal – despite having left federal government service two full years be- fore the program existed, and while living in B.C. at the time). But here’s the thing: while Wikipedia may posi-


With very few exceptions, The Big Three campaign roles – campaign manager, director of communications, and policy chief – always seem to be men. And that’s bad. Really bad.


I found a list, all right. It contained almost 70


notable names that had been associated with cam- paigns at the municipal, provincial or federal level, from coast to coast to coast. There were Liberals, Conservatives and New Democrats. It was a pretty lengthy list. But, out of the nearly seventy names of cam- paign advisors on my computer screen, only five – that’s right, five – were women. The NDP’s Anne McGrath and Sheila White; the Conservatives’ Leslie Noble, and Carolyn Stew-


40 Campaigns & Elections | Canadian Edition


tively stink as a source of knowledge and facts, the Wiki-nuts points us all to one particular fact can’t be denied.


And that is that Canadian political


backrooms may extol the virtues of gender parity – but, mostly, they don’t practice it. Men, over- whelmingly, are found in prominent positions on campaigns. Women are not. True, campaign chairs most often reflect the


communities they come from – with them, there tends to be a commendable amount of gender and ethnic balance. That’s good. But, with very few exceptions, The Big Three campaign roles – cam- paign manager, director of communications, and policy chief – always seem to be men. So too the people who staff most campaign functions – very often, guys. And that’s bad. Really bad. In my own case, I’ve had the privilege to com- mandeer and/or umpteen war rooms at all three levels of governance, and in most of the provinces and territories, too. In every instance, I’ve gone to great lengths to ensure the war room has the right male-female balance. And I haven’t done it for op-


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79