Recruiting female MLAs must be a priority, leaders agree

New Brunswick’s political leaders have rarely agreed on anything during the election campaign but the five men have all acknowledged this week the need to bring more women into politics.

Progressive Conservative Leader David Alward, Liberal Leader Brian Gallant, NDP Leader Dominic Cardy, Green Party Leader David Coon and People’s Alliance Leader Kris Austin have stood in front of the cameras this week to debate their visions for New Brunswick.

But it is the second election in a row where the party leaders have been all men.

Coon said the Green Party has done the most to bring more women into politics.

“You've got to walk the talk and that’s what we’re doing as the Green Party in this province and our number of women candidates demonstrates that,” said Green Party Leader David Coon.

The Greens are running 22 women in 46 of the province’s 49 ridings.

By comparison, the NDP is running 15 female candidates, the PCs and the Liberals are both running 13 and the People’s Alliance has five female candidates.

Alward said he was proud of his record of the seven women in his PC caucus and including women in his party in the 2014 campaign.

“I’m very proud as well of the fact that fully half of our new candidates who are running this time are very strong women leaders in their communities,” he said.

“We are working to ensure that women’s voices are heard.”

Parties have also continued to have trouble to recruit women to run for them during the provincial election and the number of women in the legislature has never managed to surpass the 10 female MLAs who were elected in 1999.

Six women were elected in 2003, followed eight in 2006 and eight in 2010.

More action required

The political leaders also addressed steps they wanted to take to make politics a profession that women wanted to enter in the future.

“Let's make sure there's access to facilities that women MLAs would need because they're often expected to continue their role and someone earning a salary but also working as mothers as well,” said the NDP’s Cardy.

Liberal Leader Brian Gallant said the lack of women in the legislature is “clearly a problem” and he pointed to municipal, provincial and federal statistics that demonstrated how under-represented women were in elected politics.

“This is a problem that has existed for a long time, we have to continuously work to overcome this challenge,” Gallant said.

The Liberal leader said he wants to change the province’s political culture and make politics more collaborative and co-operative. He said that would help encourage more women to enter elected politics, but he also said it’s important to ensure women are placed into senior roles in government.

“We're proposing we also increase the amount of women that are appointed to agencies boards and commissions,” he said.

Expert says responses don’t go far enough

Joanna Everitt, a political scientist at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John, said much of what the party leaders said this week was lip service.

“They all had the common response, ‘We're working hard we've got some great candidates. We have some women in leadership roles within our parties,” she said.

“But I don't think it really addresses the issue.”

Everitt said some parties have a policy to ensure women run but the provincial government also needs to find ways to encourage equal representation in office.

In 2005, the Commission on Legislative Democracy proposed several recommendations to boost the number of female MLAs, including changing the way MLAs are elected and giving political parties more money for nominating more female candidates. However, none of these proposals were implemented.

Another problem, Everitt said political parties too often run women in ridings that they are unlikely to win. So, while the parties may have a growing list of women, the number of female MLAs has not budged significantly.

“Again and again from one election to the next, those women in New Brunswick are nominated in the swing ridings, the vulnerable ridings and the chance of many of them getting re-elected or elected is really quite limited,” she said.