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I can鈥檛 express to young Canadians how difficult it was and is for a woman to reach such heights. McKenna was born in 1971 when women had little reason to expect much in life.

I鈥檒l set the scene for younger readers. The year before McKenna was birthed, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” became a huge American TV sitcom hit. It was about an independent young woman leaving her hometown for a big-city career, precisely what McKenna would do when she left Hamilton for the University of Toronto.听

Here鈥檚 a column nugget, an earworm for you. The MTM theme song lyrics are still famous.听鈥�Who can turn the world on with a smile? Who can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile? Well it鈥檚 you girl and you should know it. You鈥檙e gonna make it after all.鈥�

Young women had high hopes. Too high maybe.

By chance I watched the gentle songwriter (he just died at 88) . His second verse (unused in the TV theme song) shocked me. 听鈥淵ou are most likely to succeed. You have the looks and charms, and girl you know that鈥檚 all you need. All the men around adore you. A sexy look will do wonders for you ...鈥澨�

It鈥檚 the music of #MeToo, the soundtrack for the lives of women and girls.

Women were rarely welcomed into senior jobs except in troubled industries. Now MAGA Trump is dragging us back into violence, medical terror, unemployment and cartoonish versions of female beauty to please angry old men like him.

So many other female Canadian politicians have bowed out of power recently, including Chrystia Freeland, the best prime minister Canada never had, with Justin Trudeau treating her with the same contempt he dished out to McKenna. He sent McKenna to the Heritage ministry 鈥� 鈥測ou get to spend a lot of money at Heritage鈥� was the bait 鈥� but she protested and got Infrastructure.

But it was over. Trudeau was a feminist more in (gender) theory than in practice. Stars fall from the sky, which darkened for him as well.

McKenna, a mother of three young children, survived a frightening and ugly era when American-style woman-hating vitriol, street swarming and violent attacks floated north to make Canadian politics near-intolerable.

McKenna鈥檚 blonde beauty would go unmentioned elsewhere. In politics, it helped make the extreme-right males, including faux-journalists, very angry. In 2017 she reacted icily when a climate-change-denying Conservative MP

Primitive men swarmed her on social media with that epithet and worse. In 2019, 鈥淐—T鈥� was spray-painted on her constituency office window. She was stalked and harassed on the street with her children. Despite repeated requests, the RCMP was slow to help.

Even in Canada, most women who draw public attention will endure this. It鈥檚 worse now. I was swarmed by a mostly male mob shouting slurs in 2018 as I covered a public meeting, called 鈥渃—t鈥� in the street in 2024, repeatedly monstered online and am still mobbed by diversity-hating men in print. Other female journalists, politicians and activists get it worse. In the U.S. they get shot.

It鈥檚 not a question of being 鈥渢ough.鈥� That鈥檚 a male construct. There are fewer paths for women into politics, as journalism shrinks and city council and school trustee posts vanish as a launchpad.

McKenna finally realized that her work no longer served her life. She now runs her own company, Climate and Nature Solutions, has remarried, and seen her kids off to university.

This fine political woman is only in her 50s and has more to do in her fluent, expansive, high-powered career. Like Mary Tyler Moore in a Minneapolis newsroom, she made it after all.

And now she鈥檚 gone.