This week I attended a lovely event hosted by soon-to-be-retired Senator Marilou McPhedran. It was billed as a symposium on the “Virus of Inequality”, and the evening event and reception was part of a series of events and dialogues that the senator was hosting. Part of the motivation was to
Rough week and it’s only Wednesday. Yesterday the labour movement was shocked and shattered by the news of the death of a colleague and activist that many of us have known and worked with for decades. Today I woke up to two pieces of news - a murder-suicide in
Well, the deadline for joining or renewing your NDP membership has finally passed. We're in the final stretch of the campaign to choose our next federal leader. It's been an odd campaign. Quote a lot of whispering, chatter coming from supporters of one camp or another,
It just struck me that twenty years ago last week I launched my campaign for city council. Twenty years! So much has happened since then. Two kids. A lot of changes in the neighbourhood, and the city. A light rail system cancelled, then rebooted, then built and (eventually) launched… kinda.
Yesterday's post offered some reflections on rest and the difficulties I have putting my own well-being before other responsibilities. It's something I have been wrestling with a lot, and working on not just personally, but politically. A confluence of things have happened that got me thinking
What does rest mean to you? As we head into the final hours of 2025, I've been thinking a lot about the topic of rest, and my complicated relationship with it. For many years, I have had two modes - go go go and complete and utter shutdown.
December 6 is a difficult day for women of my generation. I was 21 in 1989, working on my MA in Dublin, and was getting my hair cut in a Grafton Street salon when I heard the news about 14 women murdered at École Polytechnique in Montréal. Murdered not only
I will never forget the time my mother warned me not to refer to myself as a feminist. It was the mid-eighties, during my first or second year of university, and I was home for a visit. She did so in hushed tones, as if it was a shameful label
Last week at the invitation of a friend of mine, l attended a networking discussion and an evening book launch hosted by a really interesting research partnership at Carleton University. They were hosting a conference of researchers on Hate, Conspiracy Theories and the challenge to democracy, and the public component
Here's the thing. Any good campaign - in politics or outside of politics - costs money. Campaigns on a national scale can cost a lot of money. When the NDP announced the rules for its leadership race, there was a lot of chatter about the $100k entry fee.
This week we lost my uncle Lee Smallman. OK, he wasn't my uncle - he was my dad's cousin. But for all intents and purposes, he was an uncle to me and to my siblings, and his kids (the closest in age to us in our
A lot of folks have started to ask me if I’m working for or supporting a candidate for leadership. So I’m going to come clean: not yet. It’s early days in this race, and it’s entirely possible others will join in before January. I want to
Last week I attended the celebration of life of one of the best of us. Paulette Dozois, former archivist, indefatigable community volunteer, staunch New Democrat and Hintonburg champion, has left a massive hole in the hearts of many. This was reflected by the crowd that gathered at Tom Brown arena
If you were a follower of the first iteration of Miss Vicky's Offhand Remarks, you'll know that I am a longtime New Democrat and a proponent of progressive politics generally. So as you can imagine, the last several months have been challenging. Like many New Democrats,
It’s been more than 20 years since I first launched Miss Vicky’s Offhand Remarks, a blog about feminism, politics, and my neighbourhood. I loved writing, loved the friends I made and the connections throughout my community that it brought, whether it was local businesses, artists, activists, media. It