NDP leads with most female candidates running in federal ridings

Canada has a smaller proportion of women in federal office than both Iraq and Afghanistan — and it’s not at all clear whether that will change after the Oct. 19 election.

In 2011, Canadians voted in a historic number of female MPs — 76 out of 308 seats in the House of Commons, or 25 per cent.

But that only put us in 46th place in the world when it comes to percentage of women elected to national parliaments, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s latest findings. As of June, Iraq was at 26.5 per cent and Afghanistan 27.7 per cent. The world average is 22.88 per cent.

There are 30 seats more in the House this time around, and the total women confirmed as candidates as of Monday sat at around 30 per cent.

That’s not good enough, says advocacy group Equal Voice.

“We’re seeing very incremental rises, and we need to do more, to infuse significantly more women into the process at the federal level,” spokesperson Nancy Peckford says.

The NDP’s stated policy is gender parity: its objective is to have women run in 50 per cent of all federal ridings. As of Monday, the party was at 42 per cent, with 118 women out of 278 affirmed candidates.

It was the only party that responded to Yahoo Canada News with explicit details of its equity policy, which also includes having women run in at least 60 per cent of districts where the NDP has a reasonable chance of winning.

The Liberal Party website boasted that 32 per cent of its candidates, of the 309 nominated so far, are women. The party has also promised that, if elected, a Liberal cabinet will have an equal number of men and women.

“Our country is enriched, and our government is more effective, when decision-makers at the leadership level accurately represent Canada’s diversity,” the site says.

“We will also adopt a federal government-wide open and merit-based appointments process, which will ensure gender parity and that more Indigenous Peoples and minority groups are reflected in positions of leadership.”

The Conservative Party had 55 women among its 302 candidates nominated as of Monday, or about 18 per cent. The party says it runs “fair and open nominations” and encourages “a diversity of experienced candidates.”

The Green Party was at 28.5 percent, the Bloc Québécois 24 per cent, according to Equal Voice’s updated data.

The pool of female candidates is always shallower because of “gendered social roles and social expectations,” said a report earlier this year by the World Bank and Zurich-based non-profit Women in Parliaments Global Forum (WIP) — a network of some 9,000 female federal politicians around the world.

“Because of this overarching factor alone, women face an uphill climb toward equality in politics from the very first obstacle,” the report said.

And it doesn’t end when they’re elected.

“Once in office, female legislators are more likely to continue to face gendered roles and expectations, capping ambitions as surely as limiting their success.”

But Equal Voice thinks plenty of women would give it a go if only there were more “formal” opportunities.

“Women would benefit from invitations to run. That happens to men all the time,” Peckford says.

“It’s not that women aren’t competitive. We just need to really facilitate the participation of viable women leaders — who are already out there making very valuable contributions — into the political process,” Peckford says.

Riding associations play a key role, in identifying those leaders in their communities and reaching out to them — and they need to do it well ahead of an election, so that women can have time to plan around all of their commitments to “have a decent chance of success.”

With about 130 nominations yet to be completed before the election, Equal Voice has issued a challenge to all parties to seek out more women.

“We cannot increase the gender balance in the House of Commons unless far more women run,” the group says. “Parties have a crucial role to play in ensuring women leaders in their ridings are aware of the opportunities and are actively reaching out to dynamic and motivated women.”