Elections as a rule do not bring out the best in people and I am no exception. I am far too easily distracted by electoral campaign trivialities. I find myself wondering, for example, how much spittle Michael Ignatieff produces in the endless efforts to come off as a for-gosh-sakes regular Joe, just who is in charge of replacing Stephen Harper’s batteries every morning, and whether it is really necessary for Jack Layton to be featured on every election sign in the two ridings closest to me with his female candidates crouched behind him, baring their teeth. “Vote for me and I’ll represent you from behind Jack Layton’s shoulder!”

I must be suffering from FED-UP — “Federal Election Disorder — Unrelated to Platforms.” Regardless of the issues at stake, I find myself slipping into a frighteningly cynical, blank-eyed apathy and this is probably due to the crushing sense that a Harper majority may be in store for us. Anybody who has identified as a feminist over the past five years knows what a grim prospect this is.

Election after election, things keep getting grimmer for feminists. This has produced a permagloom a bit like the endless winter in Narnia. You know how so many of us shuffle around dejectedly, faceless and bundled up in the winter? Well, this spring, I’m muffled up in an invisible parka of election malaise. The big question is: will the Harper Contemptorium of Canada Inc. Ltd. TM manage to take advantage of our apathies, our antipathies and our attention spans to get another crack at rolling back women’s equality?

If that happens, as we all know, the “incremental conservatism” of a few program cuts here, some deregulation there, is going to turn into the “excremental conservatism” of the shit hitting the fan for women and other equity-seeking groups. “You won’t recognize Canada when I get through with it,” King Harper the Contemptuous promised us a long time ago and that is one promise I don’t think he intends to break, no matter how many billion-dollar bombers and fake lakes we allow him to get away with. Despite his threats, people keep electing him and he keeps on lashing out at women’s and human rights advocates, which in turn encourages provincial governments to do the same. The New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women is just the latest casualty.

Thing is: it’s not only feminism under the gun of neoliberalism; it’s everybody, minus a few breathtakingly wealthy people who are on the other end, taking aim at us. The Great Deception, however, is to convince enough people that they aren’t in the sights, even as their masters’ grips tighten on the trigger. Claiming speciously to represent “family values”, the Cons have killed child care and slashed the programs that help families. They are currently ignoring desperately-needed pension reform in order to give their wealthy cronies yet more tax cuts. Their hypocrisy is outrageous, but maddeningly, it doesn’t seem to matter what they do. If the country gives Harper and his thugs a majority even with their track record, Canada might just deserve a Daily Mirror cover of its own (“How can 35 million people be so dumb?).

In my grumpiest moments, I think that perhaps a Harper majority might be just what we need to shake ourselves out of the stifling complacency that lies like a thick blanket of insulating snow over this country. Just as the tragic results of the bad old Mike Harris days in Ontario galvanized an incredible wave of grassroots resistance, maybe a Con majority will get more people off their fucking asses.

I’m also wondering how much quietude under the Conslaught has been due to the increase since the 1980s in the professionalization of non-profit and advocacy work. When I was working with the Ad Hoc Coalition for Women’s Equality and Human Rights, set up in response to the initial attacks on women’s groups launched by the Harperites following their election in 2006, I thought maybe we could organize some militant actions, such as an Oktoberfest Weenie Roast at the Eternal Flame on Parliament Hill to draw attention to the lack of women in politics and the need for women’s issues to be addressed. But this suggestion was deemed to not be “professional” enough by some of the participating representatives of women’s organizations. They preferred instead to lobby MPs and write fact sheets. Now, I’m not saying that these activities aren’t worthwhile. But they hand the responsibility for action and decision making over to a few women, thereby tacitly encouraging the rest of us to sit back and watch while the “experts” handle things. They don’t light fires in our bellies and get us out in the streets, which is how the Coalition got started in the first place, as a feminist uprising.

Let’s remember the history of feminism in Canada. Let’s think about the 1970 Abortion Caravan. The hundreds of women who trekked from Vancouver to Ottawa for Mother’s Day weekend weren’t interested in acting “professional” (whatever that means) when women’s lives were at stake. They brandished coat hangers as a symbol of the dead women who had been forced to resort to unsafe abortions and left a coffin on the Prime Minister’s doorstep. Thirty women chained themselves to the parliamentary gallery in the House of Commons and shut down Parliament for the first time in Canadian history. Maybe it’s time for another Abortion Caravan. Access and availability are already issues for many women in the North and in rural areas. Under a Harper majority, it will be far, far worse.

So, during this election, this grumpy Ottawa feminist’s hopes are staked in such uproarious uprisings as the Slutwalk in Toronto rather than whatever fills the Hill. Because when I look at the official campaigns, all I see are “professionals” urging women to just lay back and enjoy it.

Aalya Ahmad

Aalya Ahmad

Aalya Ahmad has a PhD in comparative literature, a crush on George Orwell and a rather impressive collection of cloth bags from the various public service unions she has worked with over the years....