What Madame Premier is Listening To
At the intersection of pop culture and foreign interference, Who Trolled Amber? is my #1 must-listen. Host Alexi Mostrous takes you on a journey of deciphering the who, what, who, when and why of the online abuse of Amber Heard during the defamation trial brought against her by her ex-husband Johnny Depp.
For my fellow parents, if you haven't heard of parent whisperer Dr. Becky Kennedy, consider this your introduction. Her insights and advice for parents of what she calls "deeply feeling kids" are things I use myself with my own kids. I've even read and own her book. She has a subscription through her platform but Kennedy shares a lot for free on Instagram and in her podcast. You won't be disappointed because she never makes you feel ashamed and shares how hard parenting is with her own kids as well.
If you haven't heard Beyonce's new album Cowboy Carter, go find it right now. My favourite songs in no particular order are Bodyguard, II Most Wanted with is a duet with Miley Cyrus and Just for Fun. And for some reason, I also can't stop listening to the song More Than a Feeling by Boston. Strange, I know but there's a reason why it's a classic.
What Madame Premier is Reading
Instagram has rolled out a major change about what you see in your feed and you probably don’t know about it but this series is the changes they’ve made and what you can do about it.
Instagram has failed to police bad actors in the political content sphere and instead of managing those complex issues, they are limiting all political content related to governments, elections and social issues. This extremely broad net captures everyone from political parties, politicians, political commentary, pundits and even Madame Premier.
Accounts that create thoughtful, responsible and accurate political content should be encouraged, not lumped in with undemocratic bad actors that seek to create and distribute mis- and dis-information.
You should be in charge of what thoughtful, accurate and thoughtfully created political content you consume. Instagram deciding for you isn’t right.
You can undo the political content limit to your account in under a minute by following the instructions in the posts here.
My reading habits have not changed since my last email but I can tell you what it's on reading list. And I'm not including links because if there's something here you want to read, please go out of your way to get it from your local book shop:
On Our Best Behavior by Elise Loehnen
Women Money Power - The Rise and Fall of Economic Equality by Josie Cox
Women in White Coats - How the First Women Doctors Change the World of Medicine by Olivia Campbell
None of the Above by Travis Alabanza
Feminism or Death by Francoise D'Eaubonne
Essential Labor - Mothering as Social Change by Angela Garbes
Housewife - Why Women Still Do It All and What To Do Instead by Lisa Selin Davis
Data Feminism by Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren F. Klein
The Feminist Killjoy Handbook and the Radical Potential of Getting In The Way by Sara Ahmed
The Only Woman by Immy Humes
What Madame Premier is Watching
My family and I were in Vancouver last week and my kids are *finally* at the age where they don't require my constant attention which means I actually got to watch a movie. I know, right?! I watched the rom com Anyone But You. It was ok and if you haven't seen it, it's worth a try.What Madame Premier is Doing
To be honest, not much outside of Madame Premier right now. My kids go back to school after two weeks off for spring break so my focus is on preparing for that. Maybe I should share that it's my birthday this month? I'm going to be turning 41 and I'm currently deciding if I want to do anything for it. And by do anything, I mean that's with my friends. When I asked my kids what I should do, they said we should go this place that is nothing but gigantic inflatables together. So assuming I make it out of that experience alive and not immediately at the chiropractor, I might invite some friends to go to a karaoke bar with me but that remains TBD.
Dates You Should Know
The Canadian Women in Medicine conference is happening May 23 to 25 in Halfiax this year.
March 15th is the deadline to get into the Alberta NDP leadership race.
April 16th is when we will find out the details of the next federal budget
April 22nd is the membership deadline for the Alberta NDP leadership
June 22nd is the Alberta NDP leadership election which makes June 23rd the day a lot of people will get to kind of rest!
October 17th are municipal elections in Yukon
October 19th are municipal and provincial elections in my home province of BC and you may see me out door knocking if and when I get the chance to go back
October 21st is the date of a provincial election in New Brunswick and municipal elections in the North West Territories
October 28th is the date Saskatchewan heads to the polls for their next provincial election. It's going to be one to watch as the Saskatchewan Party goes up against a competitive NDP!
And then just weeks later, Saskatchewan will be back to vote in municipal elections on November 13th
Upcoming Events at Madame Premier
This weekend I'm hosting former Calgary mayor and current Alberta NDP leadership hopeful Naheed Nenshi at the store for a live recording of my podcast Ellected. It's the fourth one in my series of chatting with all of the candidates in the running and I'm excited and nervous about my chat with Nenshi. Excited because of the momentum around his campaign and nervous because I have some hard questions that I plan on asking. Or maybe they aren't actually hard but we'll see! All 25 spots for this episode were gone in a matter of hours which is in contrast with all of the others which took weeks to fill the spots. There are still spots available for my podcast with Jodi Calahoo Stonehouse on April 13th. It's really important to me that every single spot is taken for Jodi's podcast because her messages are just as important as the others, if not more because she's the only one with a significant focus on drought, water and climate change.