Jennifer Arnold has spent her adult life in service to others — as a restorative justice practitioner, a front-line police officer, and now as a passionate advocate for the sex-based rights of women and girls. Her commitment to this work is not abstract. It is built on more than two decades of experience responding to the harms done to women and girls, and on a deep conviction that those harms cannot be addressed without honestly naming the people they affect.

Jennifer first became concerned with the sex based rights of Women and Girls in 2016. In 2018 she joined Women’s Declaration International (WDI) as a member at large, drawn by its principled stand on this issue. In December 2024, she became Coordinator of the WDI Alberta Chapter, supporting the organization’s focus on the Women’s Declaration and its recognition of women and girls as a distinct sex class deserving of legal protection. Alongside this work, Jennifer is co-founding For Women and Girls Alberta — a new, independent Alberta-based non-profit society, currently moving toward incorporation, with a mandate to bring that same principled advocacy directly to communities across the province.

Before turning to advocacy full time, Jennifer served 23 years with the RCMP, retiring in 2025 at the rank of Sergeant. Her career took her from restorative justice work in rural New Brunswick and Mi’kmaw communities in Nova Scotia, to leading the Domestic Violence Unit at the Wood Buffalo RCMP Detachment in Fort McMurray, where she became a subject matter expert in intimate partner violence investigation. She knows firsthand how critical it is that women are seen, heard, and protected by the systems meant to serve them.

Jennifer is grateful every day for the women standing beside her in this work — colleagues she deeply respects, and whose courage and clarity continue to inspire her. She lives in southern Alberta with her husband of more than 21 years. Between them, they have four adult children and two beloved dogs.

“As a police officer you know that sometimes people are going to be sentenced to jail for criminal offenses they committed. Never in my wildest dreams did I think Canada would be locking up female, largely non-violent offenders, with male violent offenders. To me that amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. I had to speak out.”

— Sergeant Jennifer Arnold (Retired), RCMP