In 2004, CBC television ranked the 10 greatest Canadians.
The list included a hockey player and coach (Gretzky and Cherry), three prime ministers (MacDonald, Pearson, the first Trudeau), two guys originally from Scotland (Alexander Graham Bell and Tommy Douglas), but no women.
It’s the type of slight North Vancouver entrepreneur and author Paulina Cameron is perpetually attuned to.
“I’ve developed this really annoying habit that whenever I see awards or speaking events I count up the number of women being represented,” she says. “It’s never anywhere close to equality.”
To help remedy that disparity, the Lower Capilano resident recently spearheaded Canada 150 Women, a collection of one- and two-page profiles of 150 Canadian women.
For Cameron, who also serves on Canada’s Expert Panel on Youth Employment, it’s crucial Canada celebrate women’s achievements and accomplishments.
“We need to develop a different narrative about who we see in positions of leadership and power,” she says.
For every dollar earned by men, women make about 87 cents, according to a March release from StatsCan. Based on full-time, full-year earnings, women earn about 74 cents to each dollar earned by men, in part due to working fewer hours than men, according to the report.
To address that gap, we need “continued willingness to ask the questions and continued willingness to listen,” according to West Vancouver resident Barbara Brink, one of three North Shore women profiled in the book alongside LifeLabs CEO Sue Paish and Knowledge Network Corporation chairwoman Nini Baird.
Best known for turning Expo ’86’s leftovers into Science World, Brink offers her account of a period when that world seemed to be imploding.
Attendance dropped, funding was in disarray, and staff morale plummeted.
“I could have fallen on the floor at that point because we had certainly left it in a very healthy state,” she recalls.
Despite her misgivings, Brink returned.
“I probably have never worked harder in my life,” she say in the book. “If anybody was going to close it, I would have to make that decision.”
All the profiles are relatively brief, sometimes only four or five paragraphs aside large photos.
“I really wanted it to be a book that you could pick and kind of leaf through at your leisure and also something that was really beautiful, coffee-table style,” Cameron says.
Most of the questionnaires touch on feminism. News anchor Lisa LaFlamme invokes journalist Rebecca West’s definition of a feminist as a woman who expresses “sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.”
While society has undergone profound changes, LaFlamme notes that “old stereotypes still creep in, so it’s never the right time to become complacent.”
The book includes several recurring questions including “What message would you put on a billboard?” (LaFlamme answers: “Give a damn.”), “Where do you feel most powerful?” (Olympic champion rower Silken Laumann answers: “In the weight room,”) and: “What age do you feel?”
Framing age as a feeling was deliberate, Cameron says.
“There’s a narrative around people’s value diminishing as they age and that’s particularly true for women.”
Equality is discussed often, with Indigenous leader Kim Baird calling for activism and litigation.
“Rights don’t usually come through benevolent granters,” she says in the book. “I feel I only became Canadian when I had my rights recognized and my community had its jurisdiction recognized.”
The book also includes profiles on several women who have walked in Canada’s corridors of political power, including former prime minister Kim Campbell.
Campbell focuses on Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, whom she credits for helping redefine international politics.
“She doesn’t have children. She has a nice husband, but he plays a minor role. She’s not glamorous; she always wears her jacket and pants,” Campbell says. “Nobody thinks she’s weak or indecisive.”
When asked about the book she gives most often as a gift, Campbell mentions her memoir.
“I know people who don’t have it and I have a box full,” she replies. The former Conservative leader also offers a word of caution for anyone considering politics as a career.
“Don’t expect politics to be a substitute for a rich, emotional life with people who care about you.”
Green Party leader Elizabeth May issues a similar warning.
“Don’t go into politics before you’ve had a real job,” she advises.
May’s profile is one of the most intriguing in the book. She describes herself as “a major beneficiary” of feminism while considering the movement less than important in her younger days.
She recounts being dismissed on the editorial page of a Nova Scotia newspaper and describes what it felt like to read the phrase: “The seals have Bridget Bardot and the spruce budworms have Elizabeth May.”
While there’s “nothing wrong” with the French film star, May says she realized the source of the jibe.
“I was only being attacked because I was a woman.”
The book also features Imogen Coe, Ryerson University’s dean of the faculty of science, professor in biology and chemistry.
In just a few words, Coe describes being abused by her partner, as well as her partner’s removal from her household.
“I became a single parent overnight,” she states, discussing the importance of building a network of friends. “I am telling this story now because people need to know.”
The book is intended to help young girls see female Canadian role models, Cameron says, noting the book was handed out to hundreds of high school students at its Nov. 17 launch.
“I had so many girls coming up afterwards saying, ‘I had no idea I could be an explorer in residence or an astronaut or I could make a robot.’”
The book is also intended to spark conversations that are sometimes smothered by civility.
“I think Canadians are sometimes polite and nice to a fault and we don’t bring up some of these harder conversations and unless we continue talking about why we need to have feminism, why gender parity, gender equality is important, then we just won’t see change happen at a pace . . . any of us would like.”
