Ellected Ep. 57 - Campaign University with George Affleck & Mike Wilson

09/01/23 • 41 min

In episode 57 of Ellected, learn about Campaign University, a new initiative for anyone discontent with the current state of politics and interested in running or getting involved. Created and run by three political veterans, former Vancouver city councillor George Affleck and veteran campaigners Mike Wilson and Emile Scheffel, they are disrupting the status quo of politics by telling you exactly how things work.
More about George Affleck:
George Affleck won his first election by doing his own marketing and was able to secure his seat despite a poor performance by his party. In his 20 years in public office, media, and marketing, he learned what it takes to handle pressure. He's focused on helping you win, having walked through the challenges of being a candidate and public servant firsthand, and come out on the other side with a passion to help others do the same.

George was elected into public office in 2011 and served two terms as a city councillor in Vancouver and is the president and CEO of Curve Communications.

More about Mike Wilson:
Mike is the CEO of In Language Advertising, a full service campaign and public policy advertising agency. He is an expert at building and driving large-scale campaigns and narratives that move public opinion. Mike is also the Principal at Dampier Consulting - A strategic communications consultancy. Mike brings high level strategic thinking to his work.
Recently, Mike has been involved in working to get good people in to politics and restoring needed public policy victories for clients throughout North America. Mike worked on Christy Clark’s leadership campaign in 2011 and then moved in to the BC government where he managed polling and advertising leading up to the 2013 election. During the 2013 election Mike helped manage the multicultural advertising for the campaign. From 2013-2107, in addition to his corporate work, Mike managed polling and advertising within the BC Government bringing systems, financial controls and campaign measurement in to the bureaucracy.
More about Sarah Elder-Chamanara:
Sarah Elder-Chamanara is the founder, creative director, designer and owner of Madame Premier, a feminist, political and activist clothing company and community based in Calgary, Alberta. With the underlying principle of seeing more women and diversity in politics, elected and in backrooms, at every level, Sarah and Madame Premier create opportunities for conversations about how politics works, why it needs to change, who it needs to change for and how the time for that is now.

George was elected into public office in 2011 and served two terms as a city councillor in Vancouver and is the president and CEO of Curve Communications.

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Ellected Ep. 56 - Kate McKenzie Co-Director of The Secret Marathon

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 is something that wasn't allowed for a very long time and the short window in which it was allowed has closed yet again. Hear Sarah and Kate speak about how The Secret Marathon came to be from an idea in Calgary to filming during one of the few public marathons that women were allowed to take part in Afghanistan before the return of the Taliban last year.
You can watch The Secret Marathon here.
Find out more about The Secret 3K here.
More about Kate McKenzie:
Kate McKenzie is Director & Founder of Worldviews Productions, a digital media production company specializing in stories of hope and innovation through a constructive journalism approach. Her most recent project is the feature length documentary film The Secret Marathon which premiered at Cinéfest Sudbury to a sold our crowd, followed by the Edmonton International Film Festival, also to a sold out crowd, where it won the Audience Choice Award for best documentary. The film has also inspired The Secret 3K, an annual run/walk in more than 27 locations across Canada and around the world to promote gender equality and safe and inclusive spaces. Kate is also the Manager of ATB X a business accelerator where Kate helps businesses achieve growth. As a published author, exhibiting fine artist and professional public speaker, Kate is passionate about sharing meaningful stories across a variety of mediums. Her TEDx talk about the Power of Positive News has had over 11,000 views. Kate has a Masters in Digital Media from Ryerson University and a Bachelors in Education with a specialization in experiential learning from the University of Lethbridge.
More about Sarah Elder-Chamanara:

Sarah Elder-Chamanara is the founder, creative director, designer and owner of Madame Premier, a feminist, political and activist clothing company and community based in Calgary, Alberta. With the underlying principle of seeing more women and diversity in politics, elected and in backrooms, at every level, Sarah and Madame Premier create opportunities for conversations about how politics works, why it needs to change, who it needs to change for and how the time for that is now.

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Madame Premier - Ellected Ep. 58 - Senator Kim Pate

In episode 58 of Ellected Sarah speaks with Independent Senator Kim Pate on the trip she made along with three other Canadian representatives as part of a civil society delegation that visited north eastern Syria in the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria to meet with Canadian men, women and children in detention camps and prisons for suspected members of ISIS.
Senator Pate and Sarah discuss the senator's trip as well as the complicated human and political aspects around the administration of justice, due process, citizenship, the ongoing threats of radicalization in the camps and prisons but also here at home.
More about Senator Kim Pate:
Kim Pate was appointed to the Senate of Canada on November 10, 2016. First and foremost, the mother of Michael and Madison, she is also a nationally renowned advocate who has spent nearly 40 years working in and around the legal and penal systems of Canada, with and on behalf of some of the most marginalized, victimized, criminalized and institutionalized — particularly imprisoned youth, men and women.

Senator Pate graduated from Dalhousie Law School in 1984 with honours in the Clinical Law Programme and has completed post graduate work in the area of forensic mental health. She was the Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies (CAEFS) from January 1992 until her appointment to the Senate in November 2016. CAEFS is a federation of local societies who provide services and work in coalition with Aboriginal women, women with mental health issues and other disabling conditions, young women, visible minority and immigrant women, poor women and those isolated and otherwise deprived of potential sources of support. Prior to her work with CAEFS, she worked with youth and men in a number of capacities with the local John Howard Society in Calgary, as well as the national office. She has developed and taught Prison Law, Human Rights and Social Justice and Defending Battered Women on Trial courses at the Faculties of Law at the University of Ottawa, Dalhousie University and the University of Saskatchewan. She also occupied the Sallows Chair in Human Rights at the University of Saskatchewan College of Law in 2014 and 2015.

Kim Pate is widely credited as the driving force behind the Inquiry into Certain Events at the Prison for Women in Kingston, headed by Justice Louise Arbour. During the Inquiry, she supported women as they aired their experiences and was a critical resource and witness in the Inquiry itself. She also persuaded the Attorney General and Minister of Justice to initiate the Self-Defence Review and appoint the Honourable Madam Justice Lynn Ratushny to review the convictions and sentences of women jailed for using lethal force to defend themselves and/or their children against abusive men. She then worked tirelessly in pursuit of the implementation of the many positive recommendations from both. Senator Pate has been instrumental in building coalitions across the country with other equality-seeking women’s, anti-racism, anti-poverty and human rights groups and organizations; and, in this capacity, has worked with feminist legal scholars, lawyers, other professionals and front-line advocates and activists — from Indigenous communities to transition house and rape crisis centre workers.

Senator Pate strongly believes that the contributions of women who have experienced marginalization, discrimination and oppression should be recognized and respected and she seeks to credit and empower women. She maintains contact with women in prison through her numerous visits to Canada’s federal prisons and strongly encourages other advocates, scholars, service providers, judges and parliamentarians to ground their efforts in a similar way.