Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - August 1, 2024, Winnipeg, Manitoba AG R O W L I N G G O O D T I M E ! Brew at the Zoo is back! Enjoy unlimited samples of craft beer, wine, and spirits from your favourite local vendors at this adults-only after hours Zoo event. S E P T . 1 3 Reserve your tickets now at assiniboinepark.ca PRESENTING SPONSOR PLUS - live music, games, great food, and more! DROP ZONE August 20, 2024 Be part of the excitement thedropzone.ca There is still time to register! Rappel down Manitoba Hydro Place and break down barriers for Manitobans with disabilities. THURSDAY, AUGUST 1, 2024WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM ● A5 NEWS I TOP NEWS Why the heck shouldn’t a woman be president? W HEN I am reminded that neither Canada nor the United States has elected a woman to lead their respective federal govern- ments, I often get a searing pain over my left eye. That pain is a physical reaction to anything I read or hear that seems gratuitously stupid. And I can’t think of anything more stupid than failing to elect a woman to lead a government. My reaction could be because my formative years were spent in a single-parent household led — in every conceivable way — by a mother of in- credible resilience and courage. I don’t need to be told that a woman could lead Canada or the U.S.; I grew up with a woman who I think could have done the job. Clearly, I’m in the minority on this issue. The U.S. has never elected a woman president, and only once — Hillary Clinton in 2016 — has one of the two major parties put a woman presidential candidate on the ticket. Canada has had one woman serve as prime minister — Kim Campbell in 1993 — but she led the federal govern- ment for only about four months before she was dispatched by Jean Chrétien and the Liberal Red Wave. My continued astonishment about the lack of women leaders — and another flash of pain near my left eye- brow — was triggered again this week when I read a new poll on the current U.S. presidential election campaign. Conducted just after President Joe Biden announced he was stepping down and Vice-President Kamala Harris moved quickly to become the presumptive standard-bearer for the Democratic party, a YouGov/The Hill/ SAY24 poll showed there has been a significant drop in the number of Americans who say they’re ready for a female president. Head-to-head, Harris polls well against Republican party nominee and former president Donald Trump, with roughly half of respondents believing that both are qualified for the job. However, that’s when things start to get depressing. Back in 2016, when Democratic candidate Clinton came within a few Electoral College votes of becoming America’s first female president, the same polling firm asked the same questions and found that 63 per cent of voters said they were ready to accept a woman as president. The 2024 poll found support for a fe- male president had dropped to just 54 per cent, while 30 per cent of respon- dents said they were dead-set against a woman taking over as leader of the free world. Support for a woman president dropped for both Republican and Democratic voters. In 2015, 82 per cent of Democrats and 44 per cent of Republicans supported the idea of a woman in the Oval Office; in 2024, that support has dropped to 77 per cent of Democrats and only 30 per cent of Republicans. The more insidious result comes from the finding that 41 per cent of respondents believe more than half of the electorate won’t vote for a woman running for president. The same lack of support is really a global phenomenon. UN Women re- ported this year that only 27 countries have women heads of state and, at the current rate, it will take 130 years to achieve balance with men. There is less polling data in Canada because, quite frankly, the parties with the best chances of forming govern- ment haven’t picked female leaders. But there is some data that demon- strates how Canadians suffer from some of the same underlying voter dynamics. Just after Clinton won the Democrat- ic party’s nomination, a 2016 Angus poll of Canadians found that 84 per cent of respondents felt that “men and women make equally good leaders. However, 85 per cent of respondents also believed that most Canadians do not support the idea of a woman as prime minister. How is it that in 2024, we can be so hung up on gender when assessing candidates to serve as heads of govern- ment? And perhaps more importantly, will gender become an issue in the upcoming U.S. election? Although the role of gender in Clin- ton’s loss is still being debated — she did, after all, get three million more votes than Trump — there is a strong argument that being a woman did not help her. Those who do not think gender played a role note that Clinton suffered greatly from an ultimately unfounded FBI email investigation, and still drew strong support from female voters. However, Clinton got fewer votes overall than Barack Obama over the previous two elections. So, she was still dominant in drawing votes, but it was among a slightly smaller pool of support for the Democrats. Where does that leave us as we head to a Kamala Harris-Trump showdown in November? Gender really shouldn’t be an issue for voters, but given the recent poll results, you can already see in the Republican campaign an appetite to directly and indirectly undermine Harris by drawing attention to the fact that she’s a woman. At an event Wednesday, Trump re- peatedly mispronounced Harris’s first name, and then claimed that for most of her life, she identified as Indian and only recently claimed she was Black. (Harris has Indian and Jamaican heritage.) The tenor of that attack allows me to make two important predictions. First, the presidential race will be incredibly tight. And second, I’m going to need an ice pack for my achy forehead. dan.lett@winnipegfreepress.com DAN LETT OPINION Wildfires continue to burn in northern Manitoba WILDFIRES continue to rage in northern Mani- toba, threatening hydro infrastructure and keep- ing some First Nations residents from their com- munities. Provincial and local fire departments continue to fight two fires encroaching on Marcel Colomb First Nation, said the province’s latest fire bulletin issued Wednesday. A fire four kilometres east of Marcel Colomb has grown to about 1,458 hectares, while a blaze eight kilometres northeast of the First Nation is about 475 hectares. The northeast blaze isn’t expected to reach the community, based on the current wind direction forecast. Sprinkler systems have been set up on 30 build- ings in and around Marcel Colomb. The province ordered an evacuation of Marcel Colomb and surrounding communities last week. Some residents of Manto Sipi Cree Nation, Red Sucker Lake First Nation, Wasagamack First Na- tion and God’s Lake First Nation have also been evacuated to Winnipeg and Brandon due to a wild- fire that has grown to about 24,320 hectares in size. Provincial fire maps show 58 active wildfires across the province, with a total of 175 wildfires to date this year. The number is below the provincial average of 277 fires for the same time in previous years. Firefighters are working to shield Manitoba Hy- dro infrastructure and the Bell communications tower, which services the Island Lake area, from the flames. Crews from Ontario, Quebec and New Bruns- wick are assisting in the fight. Area residents are advised to take precautions to protect against smoke inhalation while the fires continue to burn, the bulletin says. — with files from the Canadian Press nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca NICOLE BUFFIE IN BRIEF RCMP SEEK PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE ABDUCTION SUSPECTS RCMP are searching for a pair of women accused of abducting a 28-year-old and holding her against her will while assaulting her in Portage la Prairie. Police have warrants for Carrie Bearbull, 45 of Portage, and Kelsey Meeches, 35 of Long Plain First Nation. They’re wanted for kidnapping without a firearm, forcible con- finement and assault. Mounties were tipped off about the abduction via social media last Thursday morning. RCMP learned that the victim, a woman who knew the two alleged attackers, had been dragged from her home and put into an SUV. Officers went to Dakota Tipi First Nation, where they were able to identify the vehicle with the help of community members. Mounties then went to a home in Portage, where they found the vehicle outside and the victim inside. RCMP took the victim to the detachment, where she confirmed she’d been abducted and assaulted. Mounties ask anyone with information about Bearbull and Meeches to call the Portage detachment at 204-857- 4445 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-222-8477. ARREST MADE AS WEST END DEATH RULED A HOMICIDE THE death of a man in the rear lane of Lipton Street in Winnipeg’s West End last September has been classified as a homicide. Winnipeg police had earlier deemed the Sept. 11, 2023 death suspicious, though homicide detectives were investigating. The man, now identified publicly as 56-year-old Robert Wayne Billings, was found badly injured in the alley between Sargent and Ellice avenues at about 4:30 p.m. and later died in hospital. On Wednesday, police announced Billings’s death was a homicide. Christopher Michael Gatehouse, 43, was charged with manslaughter after he was arrested at a home on St. Paul Avenue on Tuesday. He’s been detained. Police say he did not know Billings. ARREST MADE AS KNIVES BRANDISHED IN STORE LOT A MAN accused of brandishing knives while threatening people in a grocery store parking lot on Saturday after- noon has been arrested. Two victims approached Winnipeg Police Service offi- cers working special duty at a grocery store on the 1500 block of Regent Avenue West at about 1:30 p.m. to advise they’d been approached by the armed man outside. Police went to the lot and found the man. While search- ing him, they found two knives, police said. Police determined the man had approached the victims, a man and a woman both aged 56, and threatened them while holding the knives. Francois Roger Bighetty, 56, of Winnipeg, has been charged with two counts each of assault with a weapon and uttering threats, as well as five counts of failing to comply with a probation order, namely not to possess weapons and not to attend a certain location. He was detained. Bighetty pleaded guilty in early July to another count of failing to comply with a probation over possessing weapons in March, court records show. He was given timed served. His record includes convictions for assaults, uttering threats, robbery and break and enter. ;