I had a mother who got involved in grassroot politics when I was growing up. I watched her have agency and become political in a very male-dominated world.

I'm so aware how often women's bodies are objectified on film.

With 'Suffragette,' I was emboldened that there were so many women around me. We had a female writer, producers, production and costume designers.

Having the vote is just symbolic. There are still many issues on which women don't have any right and, in many countries, where women are given very very few rights.

You don't come into government thinking it is going to be easy.

Now that the Liberal party has returned to power after nearly a decade of Stephen Harper's Conservative government and its on-again, off-again friendliness with Beijing, the propaganda line is that Canada-China relations are on the verge of a 'new golden age.' Count on it. There will be a price, and we will pay. We always do.

Democracy cannot be a plaything for the capital cities. It has to infiltrate every nook and cranny in the country, including the village.

A lot of young poets today, from what I've heard and experienced, can't get their heads past George W. Bush, and I've heard so many poems about this democracy and this era of politics that I'm kind of bored by it.