Judy Rebick

Judy Rebick in 2005

Judy Rebick (born 15 Aug 1945 in Reno, Nevada, arrived in Toronto at age 9), is a Canadian journalist, political activist, and feminist. [1]

Judy Rebick first gained national prominence as president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women from 1990 to 1993. She was the co-host of a prime time debate show called “Face Off” on CBC Newsworld from 1994-1998 and then a women’s discussion show “Straight From the Hip”, until 2000. She was a regular commentator on CBC TV’s “Sunday Report” and CBC Radio. She was during that time also a columnist with Elm Street Magazine, London Free Press, and on CBC Online.[2]

In 2001 she helped launch rabble.ca, a multi-media independent news and discussion site, with Mark Surman, Judy MacDonald, and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Rebick was publisher of rabble.ca from 2001 until 2005.

With Jim Stanford, Svend Robinson and Libby Davies, she helped lead the New Politics Initiative, a movement that worked both inside and outside the New Democratic Party to refocus it as an activist party. The NPI’s platform was rejected at the 2001 NDP convention in Winnipeg. She initiated the wind-down the NPI in 2003, claiming that many of its ideals had been embraced by new party leader Jack Layton.

She first became active with the Ontario New Democratic Party in the mid-1980s, in an internal group called the “Campaign for an Activist Party”. Though the CAP generated a significant degree of grassroots support, it was opposed by the party establishment (including party leader Bob Rae) and failed. Rebick lost her bid to become party president, losing to Gillian Sandeman, 818 votes to 361. Rebick also worked for the Canadian Hearing Society during the 1970s and 1980s as special projects director.

Her latest book is Transforming Power: From the Personal to the Political (2009) published by Penguin. She is currently the Canadian Auto Workers Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson University in Toronto.

Rebick, who is Jewish, took part in protests against Israel’s actions during its 2009 Gaza invasion.[3] [4]

After the conclusion of the G20 summit in Toronto in June, 2010, Rebick suggested that police did not adequately address the problem of Black Bloc protestors, who caused property damage: “What they could have done is arrest the Black Bloc at the beginning before they had a chance to be part of the bigger crowd, and that's what they didn't do.”[5]


[edit] References

  1. ^ York University - Media Releases
  2. ^ Judy Rebick to present public lecture at Laurentian University
  3. ^ Emily Mathieu, "Jewish women arrested in Toronto consulate protest", Toronto Star, 8 January 2009, accessed 4 September 2009.
  4. ^ Jewish Women Occupy Israeli Consulate in Toronto, SOURCES, 7 January 2009.
  5. ^ Sunny Freeman, "Black Bloc tactics alarm police", Canadian Free Press, 28 June, 2010.

[edit] External links


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Democracy  –  Democratic Values  –  Feminism  –  Networking  –  New Democratic Party  –  Social Change  –  Women  –  Women in Politics  –  Women's History  –  Women's Movement

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