5/17/2023 0 Comments Mounty bountieThe Abortion Caravan stops in Calgary, April 1970. Those records, obtained in regrettably-eviscerated form by the authors using the Access to Information and Privacy Act (ATIP), is the foundation for this illuminating book. The resulting surveillance led to the RCMP creating tens of thousands of pages of files on women’s liberation organizations and individuals associated with them. The rhetoric alone was enough to put them under the intense scrutiny of the RCMP, which until 1984 had the task of monitoring perceived subversion. Nothing less than a determined campaign to “smash capitalism” was called for. The new laws decriminalized homosexuality, allowed abortion under strictly-regulated conditions, made divorce easier to obtain, and decriminalized the sale of contraceptives.īut for the advocates of what came to be called “women’s liberation,” reform was for sellouts. A bid by parliament in 1968-9 to mollify public dissatisfaction with outdated laws governing sexual practices and divorce unexpectedly propelled a generation of younger women into more radical action. In Canada, the reenergized women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s got an injection of militance, ironically, from progressive legal reforms. “Through those events and more,” writes reviewer Larry Hannant, “the RCMP did what it did best – keeping the recording machine running.” - Ed. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018Ĭhristabelle Sethna of the University of Ottawa and Steve Hewitt of the University of Birmingham, England, trace the work of RCMP spies and informants in gathering “Mountie bounty” - surveillance information gained through watching and recording the protests and private lives of Canadian women’s groups in Cold War Canada, including the influential Vancouver Women’s Caucus. Just Watch Us: RCMP Surveillance of the Women’s Liberation Movement in Cold War Canada
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |