Women in politics

The next federal election is shaping up to be a good one for women candidates, according to this impressive website, which is keeping track of nominations in all parties.

The New Democrats, so far, have a whopping 40 per cent women candidates. The Liberals, true to Stéphane Dion's promise to run women in at least one-third of the ridings across Canada, are at 37 per cent.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are stuck back at 17 per cent in terms of women candidates, but they can boast the largest number of candidates nominated so far overall - 262 out of 308, or 85 per cent.

For some time now, most pundits have been predicting that the next election campaign will be a nasty one. But people have also been predicting that the tone of politics will improve when more women enter the fray. It may be interesting to see which prediction turns out to be true.

Comments

[Pundits' Guide]

Susan, thank you for the link. Collecting the data is thankfully becoming a bit more of a collective effort, as a number of readers are starting to write in with information and to correct errors and typos. So I would encourage your readers to hold forth and do the same.

Another category I'm starting to collect data on is the aboriginal identity of nominated candidates. My data on that topic to date can be found in the blogpost: "Nominated Aboriginal Candidates To Date" [rats, your Typepad comment functionality won't let me add the URL; anyways look for it down the right-hand column of the site's main page]. Again, if readers can supply any additional names or information I may have missed, it will be added ASAP.

Candidate ethnicity is not far behind on my to-do list, although I think I'll have to proceed carefully.

Again, thank you for your interest in the Pundits' Guide.

[jad]

Explain to me again why it is important to have "women" candidates as opposed to just really good candidates. Please.

[James Curran]

Actually the numbers are a bit inflated now. The methodolgy is based on women nominated per total nominations completed. When you transpose those numbers of nominated females with the total amount of ridings (308) the following results occur:

The Greenies: 12%
The Connies: 14.6%
The Dippers: 25%
The Bloquistes (75 ridings): 25.3%
The Libsters: 28.2%

Stephane is still 16 Ladies shy of his goal.

[Brian Finch]

With the Conservatives at 85 percent of nominations completed, this means that there is no way they will be able to get any kind of meaningful participation within their party. But she we expect any less.

[Rick]

Explain to me why "women" candidates are important. Because women make up a significant portion of our population, and are traditionally under-represented within politics. We can have women and good canidates, this is possible. The quotes around women is really patronizing, and this is coming from a man.

Personally I'd like to see more women in politics, we'd probably have a much saner parliament.

[wascally wabbit]

I agree with JAD on this one...
I have promoted appropriately qualified women candidates (Martha Hall-Findlay for one) but only because she was appropriate - a good personality, known and a former resident in the riding, and would be running against an inadequate incumbent (Helena Guergis)...but tokenism I loath.
I'm still mourning the recent death of one of the best politicians I ever knew - a woman - Joyce Trimmer - who - as Mayor of Scarborough and as controller for Metro Toronto - took on developers - Paul Godfrey - and eventually - after she retired from formal political life - Mike Harris himself.
Tough - fair - able to move an audience with the power of her logic..didn't matter whether she was man or woman - Joyce would have got my vote - anytime!
We don't need quotas - any political party that tries this - and Mr. Dion knows it has already backfired once - is showing itself to be shallow and self serving..
They should be deeper in their philosophical thinking about setting the conditions where recruiting would attract candidates of all stripes and genders - because they have a great platform. This electoral runup is STILL all about personality - not about policy...and the Federal Liberals STILL don't seem to get it!
First and foremost - they should remember - the guys at Party HQ - that they are only there because of the folks in the trenches - in the riding associations - and give them the tools and the power to recruit the right candidates...and not parachute so called stars in with opposition from the Riding Association...
Jeez - you touched a nerve there...

[Gabby in QC]

Jad wrote:
"Explain to me again why it is important to have "women" candidates as opposed to just really good candidates. Please."

May I add another request?
Please explain to me why it is important to track the aboriginal identity and ethnicity of candidates?
Isn't CANADIAN citizen good enough?

Can we soon expect candidates to be classified according to carnivore, vegetarian, vegan, BMI (body mass index for the uninitiated), etc.?

[Pundits' Guide]

To jad and Gabby in QC:

These are characteristics that are collected and measured by Statistics Canada, so it seemed valid to collect them about candidates as well for research purposes. Various political parties are setting goals for themselves in nominating a certain percentage of women (the Liberals), or improving their representative from new Canadian and visible minority communities (Conservatives, NDP and Bloc), so collecting this data would allow us to measure their progress against those publicly stated goals. I should mention that I have received a few media inquiries as to whether such data was available, which is one of the reasons I'm trying to collect it.

The site also includes data about party progress in nominating by region, province and local region, as well as by party standing in the seat in the previous election (e.g., how well covered is the party in seats in which it came second last time, or placed a strong third), which you may find more interesting. These queries can be located on the site's "Search the Database" page.

Later on I'm hoping to classify candidates by their occupational background, cabinet membership, previous electoral experience, and other dimensions as well. If you have any additional suggestions for inclusion, I'd be happy to put them on my to-do list if there's a publicly available source of data.

[Sir John A.]

This whole women in politics business is ridiculous.

Let's let ridings and parties decide for themselves who should be their candidates, and then lets let voters decide which ones are best.

What a concept!

[Pundits' Guide]

I like James Curran's methodology too; will see if I can fit that alternative calculation into the teeny tiny table as well.

[jad]

"Because women make up a significant portion of our population, and are traditionally under-represented within politics."

So what you are saying is that if women for whatever reason cannot get themselves nominated, political parties should take steps to help them ? How condescending.

"We can have women and good candidates, this is possible." Absolutely this is possible, but a quota system tends to negate this.

" The quotes around women is really patronizing,"
I felt the whole piece was patronizing, and that is why I used the quotes.

"and this is coming from a man."

Excuse me ???? Just because you think someone is coming from a certain point of view, it is nevertheless very dangerous to make assumptions like that. Obviously I have no way of proving it on the web, but I am MOST DEFINITELY NOT A MAN !

I think the real point of this discussion should not be the number of candidates selected, but the number of candidates elected. Obviously if you don't nominate many female candidates, you won't elect many female candidates. On the other hand, nominating a bunch of women in ridings they don't have a hope of winning is not exactly doing anything for anybody. It's all just smoke and mirrors.

[Gabby in QC]

Pundit Guide,
Thank you for the explanation on the rationale and methods for gathering such information. However, that in no way addresses my opposition to the kind of tokenism demonstrated by such methods, no matter which party does it.

It's not HOW it's done that concerns me, it's WHY it's done to begin with.

Nominations should be open to qualified candidates; they should not be based on what their underwear covers.

And as for the illusion that more women in politics will make for a more civil and smoothly functioning Parliament, dream on ...
Some of the most scathing vicious criticism lately has been uttered by women MPs, and the men have to tread carefully in responding lest they be accused of attacking the "poor sensitive women."

[Pundits' Guide]

Hello again Gabby in QC,

The Pundits' Guide does not take a position on whether parties should have quotas for certain kinds of candidates, or how any party's nomination process should be conducted. It merely seeks to measure that behaviour after the fact, to allow readers to draw the conclusions they like.

Perhaps you're saying that even such counting should not take place. However it does and is ongoing in such varied corners as Steve Janke's blog (see: http://stevejanke.com/archives/248133.php) and the Green Party's online discussion forum (see: http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/4100).

Commenter jad also mentions that's its the performance of candidates at the polls that matters, rather than simply the fact of nomination, and that's a very good point. When I get to work on the "Browse Candidates" page, that will be the place to do that analysis, which again is on my to-do list.

The Guide is a personal volunteer project of mine, and I will say that representation of various groups in party slates is one of my personal interests, which is why I sought to include that analysis. Nevertheless, I have readers from all political persuasions, and am trying to keep the site as neutral as possible. I hope you will find other research topics of interest to explore there as well, and would appreciate any suggestions you may have.

[LFC]

In addition to the overall issue about whether women are being nominated in winnable ridings, remember too that historically there's been an inverse correlation between the number of women nominated and the party's chance of electoral success - i.e. the greater a party's chances for achieving government, the fewer women nominated, and vice versa. This may not bode well in the immediate future for the women running this time around for the Libs or NDP, but the effort is nonetheless commendable.

[Pundits' Guide]

Right, LFC, but I think the direction of causation is more likely the first one you named (perceived greater chance of government -> more competitive nominations -> fewer women interested in competing for nominations or being approached to run for them), rather than the second. You're not saying that *because* there are more women, party X is less likely to win, I don't think. It's not that the percent of women candidates is not boding well for the parties' fortunes, is it?

I think the two parties named here may be aware of that correlation, and are attempting various approaches to ensure that the viability of a seat does not serve by definition to limit the likelihood of a woman being nominated there. The NDP has a 20-year record with its mandatory candidate search process before a riding is OKed to hold a meeting. The new Liberal leader has set a quota and is proactively using the appointment power in that party's constitution. The Conservatives also appear to me to be approaching more potential women candidates in target ridings lately, especially those without incumbents.

So, it will be interesting to see if the historical correlation you mention continues to hold during the first few decades of this century.

[Robert]

This whole concept of having to push women being in charge...Mmmm.....if we're to be expected to elect someone on the basis of gender why in all fairness should one be criticized for electing a male on that basis ? It reminds me of so many of the modern movies.....in most of them they've just got to have a woman in charge....the one with the top job....not that im opposed to a female being in charge of things but when you've just got to have it that way....doesn't that get a little bit ridicuolous and vexing to see....and not the same with men? I didn't say the other side was right but do two wrongs make a right? I would suggest lets just drop the agenda that we just have to have a certain gender in charge. Isnt that what would reflect true equality?

[Pundits' Guide]

Hi Robert: You might be interested to see who is taking a different point of view ...

http://www.gloriakovach.com/Other/Pages/Canada-Needs-More-Women-MPs.aspx