The Briefing Note Podcast

In this episode of Ellected, your Host Sarah Elder-Chamanara speaks with Kate McKenzie, the co-director of the film The Secret Marathon, the true story of women training and running a marathon in Afghanistan. The majority of the women's world take running for granted. Why? Because we run when we want, in whatever dress we want and where we want for the most part. Women in Afghanistan? Running...

In this episode of Ellected, Sarah chats with Julia Anderson, the CEO of Canadian Partnership for Women and Children's Health (CanWaCH), a membership organization of more than 100 Canadian non-governmental organizations (NGOS), academic institutions, health professional associations and individuals partnering to improve health outcomes for women and children in more than 1,000 communities wor...

Welcome to a the second special Alberta provincial election edition of Ellected with your host Sarah Elder-Chamanara and special guest to the podcast Sarah Biggs. In this halfway point recap of the Alberta election campaign, Sarah and Sarah go over the debate, polling, the ongoing issue that is Artur Pawlowski, they do a check-in on where the NDP and UCP are going into the last week (hurrah!), adv...

Welcome to a special Alberta provincial election edition of Ellected with your host Sarah Elder-Chamanara and special guest to the podcast Sarah Biggs. In what will be a weekly podcast leading up to Election Day on May 29th, Sarah and Sarah talk through their thoughts on the first week, Danielle Smith being MIA, the Calgary arena deal, Danielle S mith's newly unearthed comments equating vacci...

Content Warning - This episode contains discussions of sexual assault. In Ellected Ep. 52 host Sarah Elder-Chamanara talks with victim advocate Kristin Raworth about her article in The Line titled Sexual Violence Survivors Are Still Being Let Down . Kristin and Sarah talk about what it means for Prime Minister Trudeau to call himself and his government "feminist", what the #MeToo movemen...

In Episode 51 Ellected’s host Sarah Elder-Chamanara sat down for an in-person conversation with Sabrina Grover, fresh off her win as Mark Sutcliffe’s campaign manager in the hotly contested Ottawa mayoral elections.  Sabrina and Sarah talk about the Ottawa campaign, including what you need to do to win outside of party politics, how talking with people you don’t agree with can be a good thing, why...

50 episodes of Ellected! And what an episode to share to mark the milestone - a conversation with the Premier of the North West Territories Caroline Cochrane. In this episode of Ellected, Premier Cochrane shares some very personal stories of her youth including be homeless as a teenager and young mother with a grade nine education. Premier Cochrane is very deliberate and intentional in her actions...

Episode 49 is unlike any other so far - it's a candid and free-flowing conversation with Sarah Biggs, the co-principal of Olsen and Biggs, a political affairs firm based in Alberta. Sarah and host Sarah Elder-Chamanara focus their conversation on Alberta politics discussing Biggs's  work for former UCP leadership contestant Leela Aheer, what they both find frustrating and disappointing a...

In episode 48 of Ellected you get to hear a conversation that wouldn't have happened in 2009. That's the year BC NDP MLA Michelle Mungall was first elected to the BC Legislature in opposition and that was also almost two years into my time as a staffer for the then BC Liberal government. We played on different political teams but now we are talking about Michelle's time in oppositio...

Episode 47 is a conversation with former councillor for the Township of Esquimalt, Dr. Jane Vermeulen. More about Dr. Jane Vermeulen: Dr Jane Vermeulen is a veterinarian, former Councillor for the Township of Esquimalt (2018-2022), military spouse, mother and founder of Vets for Pets- Victoria. Jane has been involved in politics for over 20 years, starting as a "door knocker" for a feder...

The ongoing Hockey Canada scandal, the most important sports organization in the nation, using player dues to pay individuals who have made sexual assault allegations of players has completely disrupted the status of hockey in Canada and for very good reason. Hockey culture is problematic and for a lot of reasons. In this episode Tara Sloane, the former co-host of Hometown Hockey, and I discuss th...

Episode 45 of Ellected is a conversation with one my favourite union activists, Tiffany Balducci. Tiffany is an extremely dedicated union member and leader in Ontario and the backstory of how she became so involved, a leader, at such a young age is both anger inducing but also inspiring.  More about Tiffany Balducci: Originally from the United States, Tiffany Balducci has been involved in union ac...

"Hello, please hold for the Prime Minister." Can you imagine getting that call because it would be one to remember forever. Someone who will remember it forever is Karen Sorensen, who had it happen a year ago when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called and told her she would be Alberta's newest senator. Hear more about Senator Sorensen's journey to the senate, from the mountains...

The Green Party of Canada is in the midst of a leadership race to replace its former leader Annamie Paul, the first Black and Jewish woman to ever lead a political party in Canada, with two individuals and two co-candidates in the race (even this is complicated). One of those individuals is Sarah Gabrielle Baron and she joins Ellected's host Sarah Elder-Chamanara in a very upfront conversatio...

Episode 40 of Ellected features Lisa Naylor, Manitoba NDP MLA for the downtown Winnipeg riding of Wolseley.  More about Lisa Naylor: Lisa has represented the people of Wolseley as the Winnipeg School Division (WSD) Ward 4 Trustee since 2014, serving as vice-chair and chair of the Finance and Personnel Committee and on the Executive of the Manitoba School Boards Association. Lisa is known for being...

In Episode 39 of Ellected you are introduced to Kim Wright of Wright Strategies. Kim is a master of all things municipal politics in Ontario and she chat's with Ellected's host, Sarah Elder-Chamanara, about the difference of getting things done versus being partisan which, spoiler alert, you can get more done with people who aren't on your side because it leads to collaboration. Kim...

Episode 38 with Michelle Johnson, communications director to Canada's Minister of Labour and the Member of Parliament for St. John's South-Mount Pearl, Seamus O'Regan. The episode focuses on how Michelle got involved in politics and how she became a powerhouse youth organizer in Ontario. This is a must-listen episode but especially if you want to get involved in politics but don&apo...

Has anyone ever told you are about to lose a campaign but that it's ok because they think you should run for something else, something even bigger? That's what happened to Carla Qualtrough, Member of Parliament for Delta and Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion in the lead up to the 2015 federal election. Hear from Minister Carla Qualtrough about how she...

Would you say yes immediately if asked to become the communications advisor to the minister of health and deputy premier during a global pandemic? Zoe Knowles did exactly that in 2020 working for former Ontario Progressive Conservative Minister of Health Christine Elliott. In epsiode 36 of Ellected Zoe shares her entry into politics, what a day in the life of a communications advisor is like, some...

Meet Ayesha Chughtai in episode 35 of Ellected. Ayesha and host Sarah Elder-Chamanara cover a lot of ground going all the way to when they first met during the federal election in 2015 when Ayesha was a regional organizer for the Liberal Party of Canada and Sarah was volunteering on her first campaign after stepping away from politics as a staffer in 2012. Ayesha and Sarah talk politics, Ayesha&ap...

Episode 34 is all about branding and design for your campaign with Crystal Reynolds, the woman behind the award-winning design for Calgary's new mayor, Jyoti Gondek. Crystal and Sarah delve into what goes into designing a political campaign logo, the three things you have to have for your campaign if budget is a factor and you can't afford to hire someone to help you, what goes into a go...

Episode 33 of Ellected features Stephanie Mitton, principal and founder of Beacon North Strategies and principal and co-founder of WOMENdontDOthat, a podcast and blog that inspires women to do whatever it is they think they can’t do. Host Sarah Elder-Chamanara digs into Stephanie's experiences running for a contested nomination for the Conservative Party of Canada in 2018 in the federal ridin...

Episode 32 of Ellected features Alberta NDP MLA Rakhi Pancholi in conversation with Ellected's host Sarah Elder-Chamanara on Rakhi's journey into politics, her interest and focus on governance over the politics of politics and who and how she was asked to run. Rakhi and Sarah discuss what she's hearing at the doors versus what is said on social media, leaders making tough decisions...