Alberta campaign bordering on ‘Mean Girls’

It's been suggested that having more women in politics would be a good thing for our democracy: meetings would be more conciliatory and the tone of debates would be more civilized.

But after watching the first week of the Alberta election campaign, author Sydney Sharpe says "hogwash" to that.

"In this campaign, we had hope. Two women are vying for one of the most influential political positions in North America. They lead their respective political parties because they're strategic and smart," Sharp, the author of 'The Gilded Ghetto: Women and Political Power in Canada,' wrote in a column for the Calgary Herald.

"They were expected to raise the political tone to an unprecedented level of informed debate and mutual respect. The failure has been palpable."

Sharpe is referring to the personal attacks between Premier Alison Redford and Wildrose leader Danielle Smith over the past week.

On Wednesday, Smith accused Redford of not liking Albertans.

"I think Ms. Redford doesn't like Alberta all that much," Smith said during a campaign stop in Edmonton according to the CBC.

"She doesn't like who we are. She doesn't like our character, she wants to change it."

Then on Friday, controversy erupted when Amanda Wilkie, an assistant to the executive director in Redford's southern Alberta office, responded to a series of family-friendly announcements by Smith with this tweet:

"If @electDanielle likes young and growing families so much, why doesn't she have children of her own? #wrp family pack = insincere #abvote," read the tweet according to the Canadian Press.

The Wildrose leader responded with a press release saying she and her husband wanted to have kids when they married in 2006 but medically couldn't.

When the Twitter outrage grew, Wilkie backed down, tweeting "Fine, I apologize," and was eventually fired.

Sharpe says the discourse between the two leaders is bordering on catty.

"Has she gone beyond? Has she suddenly entered the realm of 'Mean Girls'? like the movie," she told 630 CHED's The Rutherford Show on Monday.

"It's kind of interesting when you have [NDP Leader] Brian Mason sitting back and saying, 'Oh, cut that out. Now, now girls.'"

Sharpe says the gender issue was never supposed to come up during the campaign, but the weekend PC volunteer's tweet has put the topic at the forefront.