Right, Left and Centre: The Politics of Some Canadians: The Lady Was A Liberal and A Feminist Too: Chapter 28, Part One.

      The Lady was A Liberal And A Feminist Too: Part One


    She grew up on Vancouver's west side in a modest small home, the second daughter of a Canadian couple who spent the 1920's in the United States. Her father was a talented gifted man who wrote in the local papers and drew political cartoons.  Her mother was a cheerful short woman with a sense of humour. Then when Linda Northland was only six years old her father died.She felt that a great  hole had swallowed up her father, a man that she'd loved.
     "I never recovered from his death," she said many years later. "I often think of my father."
     Then the now family of three had to adjust to a newer financial reality. Linda's mother Nancy sold their house and moved the family into a two storey apartment building in Kitsilano. The apartment building allowed Linda, her much older sister Lilian and her mother to survive for many years.
     Linda grew up in the 1950's and 1960's, living the usual Canadian teenage life. She became a brown haired attractive youth who as a child may have danced to the music of Chuck Berry and later watched entranced when the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan t.v. show in 1964. Then one day in the mid-1960's, she came across 'The Feminine Mystique' by Betty Friedan and read it from cover to cover. "It changed my life," she said about Friedan's book. "Suddenly I realized that men ran just about everything and that this was wrong. Women should have a chance of having power too."
     Friedan's book, in fact, wasn't that radical and didn't really denounce men who held power. Yet soon other feminists came along to attack what they called 'sexism' and 'patriarchy'. Northland had political connections and came from a federal Liberal family. She was turned on by Pierre Elliot Trudeau who won in a landslide the federal election of 1968. In that election, she was part of what was called 'Basford's Belles'. They were a group of attractive young woman who played a supporting role in the campaign of Ron Basford, a powerful Liberal Member of Parliament in Vancouver. Most women unlike Linda weren't feminists back then and were quite content to hand out leaflets when Basford made his campaign speeches.
     Basford always shaved his head bald, reminding people of movie star Yul Brynner. Skinheads were to appear some years in the future. Basford was also a tough competitor. "I'll crush that Deverell," he just about shouted at an N.D.P. supporter outside a Vancouver West End supermarket during the 1968 federal campaign. "I'll crush him, you hear me." True to his word, Basford did indeed finish ahead of the N.D.P. candidate William Deverell and the Conservative candidate too. By now, in 1968 Linda's sister Lillian had married a world war veteran who was also a strong Liberal supporter. So the three Northland women got to know many Liberals including James Sinclair, the father-in-law of Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau and the father of Trudeau's wife Margaret. Sinclair was therefore the grandfather of another Prime Minister, namely Justin Trudeau. Linda did never drift entirely away from the Liberal party even when she got to know many New Democrats.