Three Canadian women Michelle O’Bonsawin, Anjali Appadurai, and Lisa LaFlamme, are in the news lately.
Michelle O’Bonsawin, an Abenaki member of the Odanak First Nation, has been selected to serve on Canada’s Supreme Court. She is the first Indigenous person appointed to the country’s highest court. An Ontario francophone, Ms. O’Bonsawin is fluently bilingual. She taught law at the University of Ottawa, and worked in legal services for the RCMP and Canada Post before becoming a judge at Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice in Ottawa in 2017.
Ms. Appadurai, a climate and social justice advocate, is challenging MLA David Eby to become Premier of British Columbia. Born in Madurai, in India’s Tamil Nadu province, Ms. Appadurai came to Canada when she was six years old. She is director of campaigns for the Climate Emergency Unit, a project of the David Suzuki Institute that works to find solutions to the climate crisis by getting Canadian governments and leaders to adopt policies that align with the climate change science. She is expected to get support from voters who are disappointed in the way the NDP government deals with projects such as Site C, LNG and old growth logging.
Most Canadians have heard of Lisa LaFlamme. The chief anchor of CTV National News was dumped from her job after a 30-year successful and award-winning career. Her dismissal came as a shock and she didn’t get the grand goodbye she deserves given her years of service to the company and Canadians. Her fans suspect ageism (she’s 58 and has grey hair) and sexism had something to do with her firing. There is a petition circulating to have her reinstated.
We don’t know if we’ll be hearing more from Ms. LaFlamme, but we will no doubt be hearing plenty from Ms. Appadurai.
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