Alright, Now What?

With Monica Bancheri, Winner of the 2025 Feminist Creator Prize Monica, also known as Gay Italian Nonna, is a queer, masculine-presenting lesbian, talk show host, and community builder dedicated to creating safe spaces for women and the LGBTQ+ community. Through her content and talk show, she helps people find connection, friendship, and belonging. Her Talk Show unMASCed shines a light o...

With Marwa Abdou, Senior Research Director, BDL, Canadian Chamber of Commerce. After over 15 years of multidisciplinary experience abroad, taking on this unique role in June 2022 at the Canadian Chamber has been an opportune and fitting homecoming for Marwa. In her role with the BDL, Marwa leads the Research Center of Excellence and is responsible for developing and implementing an innovative long...

With Leslie Woo CRE®, Chief Executive Officer of CivicAction. Leslie is a respected city leader building sustainable communities and shaping urban development for over two decades in Canada’s fastest-growing urban region,the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. She is a seasoned urban planner, architect, and tireless community activator. At CivicAction, Leslie has been building leadership programs t...

With Dr. Ruth Green (She/her), Director of the School of Social Work at York University. Green is an activist turned accidental academic. She identifies as an urban Indigenous person, and is a citizen of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. She is from the Kanien’keha:ka Nation and is a member of the Turtle Clan. Green likes to think, discuss, and write about Indigenous education. She teaches about the...

With Frances Meyer, Program Coordinator and Team Lead at the Women’s Business Hub (WBH). Frances immigrated to Saskatoon from the Philippines 17 years ago and has launched and run several succesful businesses since 2008. Frances organizes and facilitates business programs for immigrant women entrepreneurs with the WBH team. In her free time, she offers business and life coaching. She specializes i...

With MP Jagmeet Singh, lawyer, human rights activist, and Leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party.  Referenced Link: awarepod.com   Episode ⁠Transcripts⁠   Please listen, subscribe, rate, and review this podcast and share it with others. If you appreciate this content, if you want to get in on the efforts to build a gender equal Canada, please donate at ⁠canadianwomen.org⁠ and consi...

With Elizabeth Renzetti, journalist and author. Her most recent book is the national bestseller What She Said: Conversations About Equality. In 2020 she won the Landsberg Prize, presented by Canadian Journalism Foundation and Canadian Women’s Foundation, for her reporting on gender equality. She is co-author, with Kate Hilton, of the Quill & Packet series of mystery novels. She lives in Toront...

With Dr. Chika Stacy Oriuwa, author of her 2024 memoir, Unlike The Rest: A Doctor’s Story. Dr. Oriuwa is a graduate of the University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine, where she was named the valedictorian of her graduating medical class in 2020. She is a physician, professional spoken word poet, international public speaker, writer, and champion of authentic leadership through genuine human connec...

With Hillary LeBlanc, a winner of Canadian Women’s Foundation’s inaugural 2024 Feminist Creator Prize. As an Acadian-Senegalese woman, Hillary has spent her career working in the non-profit sector, sharing stories of those in marginalized communities she herself has lived experience in. Hillary founded BlackLantic, a podcast bringing East Coast voices to the world. As a journalist, she has written...

With Lindsay Jones, a reporter based in Halifax for The Globe and Mail. Earlier this year, she won the prestigious Landsberg Award, presented by the Canadian Women’s Foundation and the Canadian Journalism Foundation. She won for a body of work that investigated stories of a sexual assault and abuse of power of police officers, sex worker rights, and online bullying and identity theft. She has writ...

With Mitzie Hunter, new President and CEO of the Canadian Women’s Foundation. Mitzie is a dynamic, community-grounded leader. Her 30 years of leadership spans the nonprofit sector, private sector, and government. Mitzie has a trailblazing track record and many successes championing infrastructure and community improvements. She was the first Black woman to serve as Ontario’s Minister of Education....

With Liza Vityuk at McKinsey & Company. Discrimination based on gender and other connected factors like our race and ability impacts our health in so many ways. In honour of International Day of Action for Women's Health, we’ve focused on gender and health matters we may know bits and pieces of but probably need to learn more about. Our guest Liza Vityuk is Partner at McKinsey & Compan...

With Carissa Gravelle at Heart and Stroke Foundation. The link between experiences of discrimination and your health and wellness is undeniable. It's all about the “social determinants of health”. Discrimination based on gender and other connected factors like our race and ability impacts our health in so many ways. For example, we get treated differently based on our gender in healthcare sett...

With Dr. Saskia Sivananthan, healthcare leader and Affiliate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at McGill University . The link between discrimination and your health is undeniable. Discrimination based on gender and other connected factors like our race and ability impacts our health in so many ways. For example, we get treated differently based on our gender in healthcare settings. O...

With The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada. As the Department of Finance Canada notes, the federal budget is “a blueprint for how the Government wants to set the annual economic agenda for Canada.”  As Canada’s public foundation for gender justice and equality, government spending decisions are always a key topic for the Canadian Women’s Foundation. The focus...

With Tracey Lindeman, author of BLEED: Destroying Myths and Misogyny in Endometriosis Care. The link between discrimination and your health is undeniable. The World Health Organization describes social determinants of health as “non-medical factors that influence health outcomes”, the “conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping t...

With Catherine Abreu of Destination Zero. I’ve heard people say, “climate disaster knows no bounds” and “it discriminates against no one.” There’s a sense in which that’s true. But impacts of climate change affect different people in Canada and around the world differently, depending on who they are.   Women, girls, and gender-diverse people often experience harsher impacts of climate change, espe...

With cave diver and climate advocate Jill Heinerth. Climate change affects us all. But women, girls, and gender-diverse people often experience harsher impacts of climate change, especially those who are most marginalized. They’re also an important part of effective climate solutions. Gender equality itself is a climate crisis solution.  Anishinabek Nation Chief Water Commissioner Autumn Peltier s...

With Mandi Gray, author of S uing for Silence: Sexual Violence and Defamation Law. #MeToo made headlines around the world in 2017 and thousands publicly shared their experiences of sexual victimization. The “me too” movement was first established in 2006 by American activist Tarana Burke. #MeToo has been called a watershed moment for gender equality, giving a powerful platform to sexual violence s...

With Prachi Gupta, author of They Called Us Exceptional: And Other Lies that Raised Us . The Canadian Encyclopedia says the model minority is a stereotype that “depicts Asians as hard working, successful at school and in the workplace, and as economically prosperous.”   It may seem like a positive stereotype. But it divides non-model and model racialized communities, ignores vast disparities in we...

With Katie Harper at Project Neutral. I’ve heard people say, “climate disaster knows no bounds”. There’s a sense in which that’s true. But impacts of climate change affect different people in Canada and around the world differently, depending on who they are.   Women, girls, and gender-diverse people often experience harsher impacts of climate change, especially if they are marginalized due to rac...

With Jake Stika of Next Gen Men, Fay Slift and Fluffy Soufflé of The Fabulous Show with Fay and Fluffy, Shree Paradkar of the Toronto Star, and Angela Sterritt, national bestselling author of  Unbroken . Today’s episode features four of seven incredible speakers at The Walrus Talks Gender-Based Violence, presented by the Canadian Women’s Foundation and held on November 16, 2023. Speakers addressed...

With Paulette Senior and Anuradha Dugal of the Canadian Women’s Foundation and Pamela Cross at Luke’s Place. Today’s episode features three of seven incredible speakers at The Walrus Talks Gender-Based Violence, presented by the Canadian Women’s Foundation and held on November 16, 2023. Speakers addressed pressing issues and solutions to end gender-based violence.  Listen to learn how we can becom...

With Amanda Arella at YWCA Canada. Those who are young face elevated risks of gendered digital harm. Statistics Canada found that, among those aged 18 to 29 years, young women were more often the target of online abuse, with a prevalence almost double the rate of young men. The gender difference was especially pronounced for receiving unwanted sexually suggestive or explicit material, where young...

With Leigh Naturkach at the Mosaic Institute. We’re still not doing enough to end gendered digital hate, harassment, and abuse on a large scale. Perhaps that can give us the impression that the public doesn’t care or we’re all too complacent to do anything about it.  The numbers tell us otherwise. In 2023, the Canadian Women’s Foundation found that 88% of people in Canada believe we need to make c...