This woman is Jackie Armstrong-Homeniuk. She is the United Conservative Party (UCP), Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) for the Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville riding in Alberta. She is also the Associate Minister of Status of Women. She initiated a “Her Vision Inspires” contest, in February, of this year. The contest was open to women from 17 to 25 years old. Contestants were asked to describe what they would do if they were a member of the legislative assembly. Sounds like a pretty good contest. Its a female-empowerment contest. What ever could go wrong?

Well, the winners were recently announced. All the attention was on the third prize winner, who won $200 for her essay. Her(?) name is S. Silver, SS for short (warning bells). Me paraphrasing what this person wrote does not do justice. Quoting from the essay:

“Women have a unique strength: our ability to give birth,”.

“To promote that women break into careers that men traditionally dominate is not only misguided, but it is harmful. Such a focus distracts from the languishing unique strength and the truly important role that women have in the preservation of our community, culture and species.”

 “While it is sadly popular nowadays to think … Albertan children are unnecessary as we can import foreigners to replace ourselves, this is a sick mentality that amounts to a drive to cultural suicide.”

WOW!!!!

I am a transplanted Albertan. I should not be surprised by this, but, wow. The essay did not go unnoticed. Albertans, thankfully, reacted in shock. First of all, that such an essay was written. Second, that it won an award!. It was posted to the Legislative assembly website. After the uproar, the “Her Vision Inspires” site was taken down. If you try to go there now, you will get an error message.

Following this debacle. Armstrong-Homeniuk issued a statement saying that the essay:

“has gathered negative attention on social media” 

No kidding!!

“The essay contest was intended to reflect a broad range of opinions from young Alberta women on what democracy means for them. While the essay in question certainly does not represent the views of all women, myself included, the essay in question should not have been chosen.”

There will be a provincial election coming up soon in Alberta. The UCP, just like the Pro-Life forces in the US, seem to forget that the voting public is made up of approximately 50% women. I am not even mentioning the blatant racism in the essay. The provincial New Democrat Party, (NDP) led by a woman (Rachel Notley) are licking their chops right now