The recent resignations of two prominent world leaders – both women – are raising questions about the “additional” pressures on female politicians and whether enough is being done to remove the hurdles they face.
Sturgeon said the brutality of modern politics had taken a toll and she could no longer commit to giving “every ounce of energy” that the job entailed.
These recent resignations come as no surprise to Sarah Kaplan, distinguished professor and director of the Institute for Gender and the Economy at the University of Toronto. The COVID-19 pandemic has been an “extraordinarily stressful” time to be a political leader, she said.
“I’m surprised that more leaders have not decided to step down,” she told Global News.
Female politicians – including on women leaders in Canada – are still facing “additional scrutiny and challenges” compared to their male colleagues, which can take a toll.
“Being a woman leader is in a lot of ways more challenging because they’re walking this kind of tightrope between being a woman and being a leader,” said Elizabeth McCallion, a PhD candidate in political studies at Queen’s University.
Because politics is deeply rooted in masculine norms, which include heckling and aggressive behaviour, “it’s not a welcoming environment for women,” she told Global News.
It’s a worrying trend, politicians and political observers say, as women in public roles around the world continue to face backlash, misogyny and personal attacks.
And while there is a growing representation of women in Canada’s Parliament, with 30 per cent of the House of Commons made up of women – that growth has not come without its challenges.
When former Liberal MP Catherine McKenna took office as Canada’s environment minister in 2015, she said she didn’t know at the time that her political duties related to tackling climate change would also include defending herself as a woman.
It was not long after she became minister, McKenna started facing online harassment and was given the nickname “climate Barbie” because of her blonde hair.
The harassment also moved offline. On one occasion in 2017, someone mailed a Barbie doll to her office.
“It was really … annoying because … I had a big job. And so the idea that I had to also be calling out often or putting up with online hate harassment … was just something I didn’t expect,” she told Global News.
In August last year, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was verbally attacked in Alberta, when a man approached her while she walked into an elevator at city hall in Grande Prairie.
He hurled profanities at her and called her a “traitor,” while a woman joined in and told Freeland “you don’t belong here.”
For Kaplan, the Canadian cases showed “we definitely have a problem in the Canadian context with treating our women leaders with respect.”
Why do women leaders face ‘additional stresses?’
There are “additional stresses” that are placed on women in a male-dominated field such as politics, Kaplan said.
Family is among them, with research suggesting that parenthood and political careers are difficult to balance, particularly for women.
She said it was “really hard” being away from family for long periods of time and she “felt extremely guilty” missing her kids’ events or activities.
Gender norms mean women are more often expected to shoulder the responsibility of child care, which is why it might be harder for women to pursue a political career, said Kaplan.
Laurel Collins gave birth to her daughter, now aged two, during her first term elected as an MP for Victoria, B.C.
The NDP critic for Environment and Climate Change said it would’ve been “impossible” to do her job without the family support, with her mom and partner’s sister both helping out with child care.
“My partner took off 14 months so that he could travel to Ottawa with me and our daughter – and without that, I would have found it impossible,” she told Global News.
NDP MP Laurel Collins rises during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on February 28, 2020.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
Collins, like McKenna, Freeland and many others, has also faced her share of personal attacks on the job.
In 2020, while talking about sex worker rights in the Parliament, one of her colleagues – a Conservative male MP – asked her if she had considered sex work, Collins recalled.
“Now, this is a question that would never have been asked to a man,” she said.
Collins said Canada has a “long way to go” to address sexism in the political space.
“We have to do more to support women coming into politics and ensure that we’re both removing those barriers and also lifting women up,” she said.
Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner has also weighed in on the “additional weight” women in politics have to carry. In a substack post a day after Ardern resigned, she drew comparisons between the kinds of questions some have asked Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and those put to his New Zealand counterpart.
“Ardern has not attributed any part of her decision to the sexism she faced in politics, so I am reluctant to do it on her behalf,” she wrote.
“Indeed, unlike Ardern, Trudeau hasn’t had to deal with things like being asked if he was going to have babies as a qualifier for his suitability for serving as Prime Minister or being asked if he met with another world leader because of his age and gender.”
She was referring to the time when a journalist asked Ardern and Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin if the purpose for the first-ever visit to New Zealand by a Finnish leader was because they were “similar in age” and that they have a “lot of common stuff.”
“We are meeting because we are prime ministers,” Marin said in response.
After almost two decades working in federal politics including seven of those as a member of Parliament, Conservative MP Karen Vecchio said she has changed the way she addresses misogyny.
“I don’t find that I address it with anger, I address it with solutions – sometimes a little sarcastic, but solutions,” she told Global News.
“What would have bothered me seven years ago, I just react very, very differently now.”
Vecchio, who is the chair of the Status of Women Committee and the Conservative critic for women and gender equality, said the COVID-19 pandemic has made it especially difficult for women leaders at all levels to balance their work with personal life.
“This is a time, especially for women, where you’re trying to find that balance, especially as a leader, the balance between family and your own personal health and that of your leadership, whether … that of a country or a community like myself,” she said.
“Trying to find that balance is very, very difficult.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the House of Commons moved to a hybrid model allowing MPs to attend and participate in debates virtually as long as they are in Canada.
A committee recommended last month that the practice introduced in 2020 become permanent.
Greater representation and allyship could also help keep women from getting “singled out” and facing political attacks, said Kaplan.
“We need the male politicians to be standing up and saying ‘this is not acceptable’ and to be setting the tone themselves in ways that I think they’re not,” she said.
“And I think there’s a lack of appreciation of the difficulty that women leaders face and the necessity for their male counterparts to stand up.”
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
