Last month, the Greens’ Annamie Paul made history when the first Black national major-party leader ran for a seat in a Toronto byelection.
And there was another significant breakthrough that night.
Thanks to the election of two new women MPs — Marci Ien in Toronto Centre and Ya’ara Saks in York Centre — there are now 100 female MPs in the House of Commons.
That’s never happened before in 153 years of Confederation.
That achievement notwithstanding, more than 70 per cent of the members on Parliament Hill are still men, so perhaps the huzzahs should still be a bit muted. When it comes to female representation in Parliament, Canada ranks 59th in the world — yes, ahead of the United States, which is 78th. But we’re somewhere between Albania and Estonia, which doesn’t feel like much of an achievement.
Despite the current prime minister’s once saying, “Because it’s 2015” in answer to a question about why he wanted gender parity in his cabinet, we’re still a long way away from that when it comes to everyday members of Parliament.
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Three Canadian political trailblazers explored why it still seems tougher for women than men in politics during a discussion hosted by the Canadian Club of Toronto last Friday. Ottawa’s first female mayor, Charlotte Whitton (1951-56; 1960-64) may have famously quipped, “Whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.” But that joke belies how elusive gender parity still is in partisan politics.
Kim Campbell, still Canada’s only female prime minister out of the 23 we’ve had, pointed to the difficulty women have when it comes to most of the political prerequisites for election.
“Women are loath to ask for money,” she said, referencing the fundraising required to run a good campaign. “And we’re socialized not to toot our own horns, which you sometimes need to do in politics.”
And, of course, there’s the issue of power.
“When people have a privileged access to power, they may not want to give it up,” Campbell added. “But a lot of this privilege is invisible to men. It’s not that they’re bad; they just don’t see it.”
The city of Waterloo has been electing MPs since 1867. Famous ones, too, such as William Lyon Mackenzie King — Canada’s longest-serving prime minister — and former hockey legend Howie Meeker. But never a woman, until Bardish Chagger did it in 2015. A year later, she became the country’s first-ever female government house leader. She insists politics shouldn’t be about taking something away from men.
“It’s about creating more space and the conditions for success for others,” she said. Now that Chagger is the current government’s minister for diversity, inclusion, and youth, she said, “I represent all voices, including people who don’t identify as male or female. We simply need to create more pathways for success.”
“We all have to commit ourselves to opening up the narrative and understanding why exclusion is so unjust,” added Campbell.
Then, in a nice non-partisan gesture, Chagger told the audience on Zoom that, when she gives her constituents tours of Parliament Hill, she makes sure people see the portrait of Campbell.
“It’s my favorite picture to show people,” she said.
Paul, the new leader of the Green Party of Canada, the country’s first Black major-party leader, and the first Jewish woman to lead a national party, was a graduate student at Princeton University in the late 1990s when her son was born. “I just brought him to class with me and breast-fed him in class,” Paul recalled. “I didn’t ask permission, because I knew they’d say no. My professors just looked to the sky when I’d talk!”
What’s Paul’s advice?
“The structures of politics are not designed with women in mind,” she said. “We have to eliminate the barriers to women’s participation.”
Marion Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, once famously said, “It’s hard to be what you can’t see.”
“If you’re not reflected in institutions, you won’t think to do it,” Paul said. “The good news is, we’re living in a moment where things we previously thought were impossible are now possible.”
Campbell also pointed out that, when her predecessor, Brian Mulroney, appointed her (and Mary Collins) to cabinet in 1989, “neither of us had kids. That meant managing our personal lives was easier. If you look at the majority of men in the U.S. Congress, they have wives that don’t work. So we have to look at the structural things that get in the way of women serving.”
Paul echoed those comments more than three decades later.
“Unless there are profound changes to the system, we have no hope for balance,” she said. “I couldn’t have done this job if my kids had been younger.”
To be sure, legislatures across Canada are more family-friendly places today. Back in Campbell’s day, she and others made sure the House didn’t sit one week out of every four, enabling everyone to get home for a sustained period of time. They also did away with night sittings.
“It wasn’t just good for us,” Campbell pointed out. “It was good for men, too, who didn’t want to sit around all night drinking and playing cards waiting for a vote. They wanted to be with their families, too. So we didn’t just do this so the ‘girls’ could serve.”
Canada’s 19th prime minister has championed a controversial idea that could fix the House of Commons’ gender imbalance in one election: ensure every riding has one male and one female MP. That’s right, two MPs for every riding. If the idea of doubling the number of politicians in Ottawa offends you, make the riding boundaries bigger and have fewer of them. The point is, the House could achieve gender balance in one fell swoop. Whether you like or dislike the idea, it would surely be a grand experiment in whether increased female participation in public life makes a difference. It’s hard to imagine it wouldn’t.
Campbell now lives part of the year in Florence, Italy. A daughter of World War II veterans, she noted that 50 Canadian soldiers, most of them in their twenties, are buried in Florence.
“They put their lives on the line,” she said admiringly. “I’m so glad I don’t have to be that brave. But we can all do more. Just step up. Watch the news, and you’ll see what happens if we don’t take care of our democracy. Vote. Write a cheque. The alternative is unthinkable. Women have a unique role to ensure those eventualities don’t happen.”
It wasn’t that long ago that six of Canada’s 10 provinces had female premiers. In fact, Ontario’s Kathleen Wynne became the sixth in 2013. Today, there are none. (Caroline Cochrane, the lone female government leader in the country today, is premier of the Northwest Territories.) But Campbell isn’t despondent.
“Don’t allow the setbacks to lead you to think there’s no support for women out there,” she said. “In 2016, 65 million people pulled the lever, marked their X, or punched their chad for a woman as President of the United States. Whatever the difficulties, we shouldn’t think people don’t get it, because a lot of people do.”
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.
