WDI extends warm thanks to Raine McLeod, for her dedicated work as national co-ordinator of WDI Canada

Raine McLeod served two crucial years as national coordinator of the Canada chapter of WDI, from its founding in fall 2020. In this role Raine worked closely with Ghislaine Gendron, Francophone coordinator.  Raine organized monthly meetings with provincial coordinators and liaised with other feminists and feminist groups in Canada.

Based in Calgary, Raine put together two “Alberta Women Speak” protests in summer 2021:  one at the Edmonton Legislature and one at Calgary City Hall.  This was a first in-person protest for many of the Alberta women she had linked via an organization she had previously founded, Alberta Radical Feminists.

At the national level, Raine helped to organize and also spoke at the protest led by Heather Mason at the Fraser Valley Institution for Women in summer 2021 and helped to organize the National Day of Protest at Canada’s federal prisons for women in fall 2021 (the poster Raine designed for this protest is featured below).

Raine authored and submitted a brief for WDI detailing the dangers of Bill C-6 (later passed as Bill C-4) which putatively outlawed “conversion therapy” targeting LGB people but which in fact enshrined gender identity ideology in Canadian law.  She also supported and encouraged the writing and submission of multiple other briefs by provincial WDI chapters regarding this law.  With Eva Kurilova, Raine created an informational pamphlet about the growing number of dangerous male offenders being housed in Canadian women’s prisons.  She also co-wrote an op-ed, submitted by multiple Canadian feminist organizations, detailing the deceptive and dangerous nature of Bill C-4.  No major Canadian newspaper was willing to publish this letter.

As have so many feminists like her, Raine has paid a price for her activism:  becoming a target of the Canadian "Anti-Hate" Network, an NGO bankrolled by the governing Liberal party.  Despite this, Raine has been, is, and will continue to be an incredible force for national networking among Canadian feminists.  The sheer geographical vastness of Canada is a key organizational challenge and personal connections are incredibly important in this context.  Raine links the efforts of WDI to those of Canadian Women’s Sex Based Rights, Women Matter Canada, We the Females, Pour les droits des femmes du Québec, and the happily burgeoning array of new organizations concerned with the negative political and cultural impacts of gender ideology.  Her warmth, wit, solidarity, and tremendous gift for friendship mean she has a direct connection with pretty much every Canadian feminist who is outspoken about the harms of gender ideology.

Thank you, Raine, for your past and ongoing efforts on behalf of the rights of women and girls.   Courtney Jones has now taken on the national coordinator role as of the growing number of women joining, ever more publicly, in our important fight.