What Does Democracy Need Now?
Women Talking Democracy is a new video interview series featuring women whose ideas, leadership, and lived experience are shaping public life today. Across conversations with leaders in politics, justice, civil society, media, and academia, the series goes beyond headlines to explore power, representation, rights, institutions, and the future of democratic life.
At a time when democracy is being tested around the world, these conversations ask what it takes to make democratic institutions more inclusive, more accountable, and more alive to the people they serve. Watch Women Talking Democracy and join a timely conversation about leadership, courage, and the future we can build together.
Why Now?
Whose Voices Are Included?
The project brings together women who are currently working in – or who have previously held roles across – a range of sectors and institutional settings, including:
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Politics and government
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Courts and justice system
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Civil society and advocacy
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Media and public communication
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Academia and knowledge production
These conversations reflect diverse professional trajectories, institutional contexts, and political moments, allowing the project to examine democracy from multiple vantage points rather than a single perspective.
How Does it Work?
The project is built around conversational interviews with women designed to dig into their reflections, assessments and prognosis on democracy. By choosing longer-form commentary, this series opens the door for women to speak in their own words about issues that are important to them and the world. Conversations explore participants’ professional trajectories and leadership experiences in key democratic institutions, focusing on their views on why democracy is failing and what needs to change, and what we need to do, to save it. Interviews also explore how being a woman shaped their experiences and trajectory.
Interviews are presented in video and audio formats, with selected excerpts and contextual framing to support public engagement and comparative insight.
Who is it for?
Democratic institutions around the world are facing growing strain, including political polarization, declining trust, and challenges to institutional legitimacy. While these dynamics are often discussed in abstract or institutional terms, they are also lived and negotiated daily by those working within democratic institutions and civil society.
Women Talking Democracy responds to this moment by centring women’s experiences of leadership, responsibility, and constraint, and by exploring what these experiences reveal about democracy’s future – not only its vulnerabilities, but its possibilities for renewal.
Women Talking Democracy is intended for a broad public audience, including students, scholars, journalists, policymakers, practitioners, and anyone interested in the future of democratic governance.
The project is designed to be accessible without sacrificing intellectual seriousness, offering an entry point into democratic questions grounded in lived experience and informed reflection.
About The Project
Our Host
Charlotte Yates
Host of Women Talking Democracy
Charlotte Yates is the host of Women Talking Democracy, a video interview series on women’s leadership and the future of democratic life. A distinguished academic leader, she has held some of Canada’s most senior university roles, including as the first woman president and vice-chancellor of the University of Guelph, provost at Guelph, and dean at McMaster University, where she is professor emerita of political science.
An internationally recognized scholar of labour, women and work, and the auto industry, Yates has championed equity, democratic inclusion, and the public institutions that sustain democracy. Raised in rural Canada by immigrant parents shaped by WWII’s threat to democracy, she brings intellectual depth, public credibility, and a deeply personal commitment to open democratic dialogue.
Interviewees
Pamela Wallin
Senator for Saskatchewan
Ewa Krajewska
Partner and Co-Chair of Henein Hutchison Robitaille LLP
Fae Johnstone
Executive Director of the Society of Queer Momentum
Aline Nizigama
CEO of YWCA Canada
Dr. Marci Shore
Chair in European Intellectual History of the University of Toronto
Janet Ecker
Former Minister of Finance for Ontario
Ana Serrano
President and Vice-Chancellor of OCAD University
The Honourable Pamela Wallin serves as an Independent Senator from Saskatchewan. She has had a long and illustrious career in the media and public service, including in 2002, when Prime Minister Chretien appointed her Canadian Consul General to New York shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Pamela Wallin is an Officer of the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honour and a Member of the Saskatchewan Order of Merit.
Ewa Krajewska is a Partner at Henein Hutchison Robitaille LLP. Ms. Krajewska specializes in a wide range of legal fields, including constitutional and regulatory disputes and appellate advocacy, which involves challenging or defending court decisions in higher courts. In 2022, Ewa Krajewska was Chief Counsel for the Civil Liberties Association of Canada’s challenge to the federal government’s use of the Emergencies Act in response to the trucker protest. Trained at McGill Law School, Ewa Krajewska clerked with the Honourable Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella of the Supreme Court of Canada.
Fae Johnstone is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Queer Momentum, a Canadian national organization engaged in 2SLGBTQIA+ advocacy in support of a more free, equal, and just future for queer and trans people, and marginalized communities. Fae Johnstone refers to herself as a “movement girl” committed to grassroots organizing, which involves training, coalition building, and public speaking. Fae Johnstone uses queer common sense to speak truth to power and change hearts and minds across the nation.
Marci Shore began a position as Chair in European Intellectual History at the Munk School at the University of Toronto in 2025. She was previously Professor of History at Yale University and is also a regular visiting fellow at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna. In spring 2025, she guest curated, together with Oksana Forostyna, the Kyiv Book Arsenal with the theme “Everything is Translation.” A new edition of her book, The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution, was published in 2024. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for her forthcoming book about phenomenology in East-Central Europe.
Aline Nizigama is the National CEO of YWCA Canada, the country’s oldest and largest gender equity organization. Ms. Nizigama is a multilingual leader who advances the rights of women and gender-diverse people by improving access to affordable housing, advocating for an end to gender-based violence, and helping build an inclusive democracy. Her international experience and personal journey enrich her understanding of the place of women in diverse societies and of the skills needed to champion change.
Janet Ecker served as a Progressive Conservative MPP in Ontario from 1995 to 2003 and held key cabinet roles, including Minister of Community and Social Services, Education, and Finance. She made history as the first woman in Ontario to deliver a provincial budget. After leaving politics, Ms. Ecker helped found Equal Voice and The Prosperity Project, enabling women to achieve success in elected office and the economy. She was a leader in the financial sector, creating public-private partnerships to promote Toronto as an international financial centre. In 2016, Janet Ecker was appointed to the Order of Canada.
Ana Serrano is President and Vice-Chancellor of OCAD University, Canada’s largest and oldest art, design and media institution. An award-winning executive with more than 25 years of experience, she has founded globally recognized labs, launched pioneering accelerators, and produced over 140 groundbreaking digital and immersive projects. Previously Chief Digital Officer at the Canadian Film Centre and founder of the CFC Media Lab, her work explores the societal impact of emerging technologies and creative practice. Serrano co-founded the DemocracyXChange Summit and serves on leading cultural and philanthropic boards, advancing responsible innovation and institutional transformation.
Raha Shirazi
Iranian-Canadian Filmmaker
Jennifer Hollett
Executive Director of The Walrus
Raha Shirazi is an Iranian-Canadian filmmaker based in Europe who fled Iran when she was 10. A War on Women, her first feature-length documentary film, had its North American debut at the 2026 Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto. Through the testimonies of women in the diaspora and documentary evidence, this deeply moving film chronicles 40 years of feminist struggle by Iranian women against the Iranian regime. The film offers a window into Iranian women’s lives, their aspirations and hopes, and their daily courage in resisting violence and oppression.
Jennifer Hollett is the Executive Director of The Walrus, an award-winning media organization known for its independent, fact-based journalism. She has more than 15 years of media experience, including work with Canada’s national broadcasters, MuchMusic, and, more recently, Twitter Canada, where she served as head of news and government. She ran in the 2015 federal election in Toronto and, three years later, made front-page news as a Toronto city council candidate involved in a legal challenge to Premier Doug Ford’s decision to cut the number of city councillors from 47 to 25 in the middle of the election.
Kathleen Wynne
Ontario’s 25th Premier
Kathleen Wynne was Ontario’s 25th Premier. She was first elected to the Ontario legislature in 2003 as the MPP for Don Valley West, and she became Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party in January 2013. Kathleen has served as Ontario’s Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, Minister of Transportation, Minister of Education, and Minister of Agriculture and Food. Kathleen served as a Public School Trustee in Toronto. She has led citizens’ groups in a number of grassroots community projects, and has played a major role as an organizer and facilitator. She and her partner Jane Rounthwaite live in Alliston, Ontario.
Our Team
Leonardo Dell’Anno is a Canadian Screen Award nominated producer who has nearly 20 years of experience in the entertainment industry. He graduated from Humber College’s Film and Television Production program and has earned accolades as a producer across various mediums, including film, theatre, virtual reality, digital media, and music videos.
His role in this project is that of a producer. Currently, Leonardo is the executive producer of OCAD U LiVE, an on-demand video channel, production house, and content creator studio for OCAD University. This innovative initiative highlights original media produced by students, fostering talent, providing valuable professional experience, and cultivating a vibrant community of dedicated creative minds.
Leonardo Dell’Anno
Producer and Creative Lead
Wrynn is a Mexican Canadian Artist and Cinematographer. She is the Technical Project Manager and Editor for Women Talking Democracy. Wrynn has a BFA in Integrated Media from OCAD University and ample experience in film and TV production. She works primarily as a Cinematographer and Lighting Technician and has worked on everything from large scale TV productions such as Wayward and Reacher to underground raves and independent short films.
Wrynn Geswin
Cassandra Preece
Researcher
Elmer Bauman-Enriquez
Camera Operator
Kyle Parrott
Project Role
Project Coordinator and Technical Project Lead
Gabriel Jae
Grip/Sound
Jacob Sullivan-LaFleur
Sound
Olivia Reynolds
Assistant Editor
Rebecca Van Fraassen
Production Manager
Laiba Malik
Social Media Coordinator
Lamb Creative Group
Marketing Agency
Our Partners
