Canada PoliticsThe U.S. has Hillary Clinton but Canada short on household female politicos
has released this year's list of the world's 100 most powerful women, with politicians dominating the Top 10.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel tops the ranking, followed by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Brazil's new president Dilma Rouseff. Indian President Sonia Gandhi, Christine Lagarde, the new head of the International Monetary Fund and U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama are also in the Top 10.
There are no Canadian women at all on the Top 100 list, never mind politicians. To be sure, there are plenty of influential women on Canada's political scene but you'd be hard pressed for a household name. The last might have been former Governor General Michaelle Jean.
She was not, of course, but the charismatic Queen's representative had inarguable clout.
British Columbia today has Christy Clark at the helm as premier, while Kathy Dunderdale governs Newfoundland and Labrador and Eva Aariak Nunavut Territory.
British Columbia boasted Canada's first female premier in Rita Johnston, who succeeded the disgraced Bill Vander Zalm in 1991. And the province produced Canada's first female prime minister, Kim Campbell, who succeeded Brian Mulroney and governed for five months before the Progressive Conservatives were crushed in the 1993 election.
There are 10 women among the more than three dozen ministers in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cabinet, the most senior of which is Senate Leader Marjory LeBreton, a veteran Tory and Mulroney confidant. She's been a key player as the Conservatives try to cement control of the upper house.
Perhaps the most visible female minister has been Leona Aglukkaq in health. An Inuit from Nunavut , she adeptly handled the so-called swine flu outbreak in 2009 and weathered controversies such as the accidental shipment of body bags to a Manitoba First Nation reserve during the crisis.
Women hold other important portfolios, including labour's Lisa Raitt and National Revenue's Gail Shea but they don't offer much of a profile.
Perhaps the most powerful woman in cabinet is Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose, thanks to control of a huge slice of the budget. But historically it's a ministry that tends to make news only when there's a scandal.
Interim NDP Leader Nycole Turmel has the potential to wield enormous influence while the party readies for a leadership convention next year and as it prepares for the next sitting of the Commons. The former public service labour leader will have to hold together the coalition Jack Layton built and validate the choice of voters who made the NDP the Official Opposition.
Women make up about a quarter of the MPs in the House of Commons, a record, with women candidates running in 81 per cent of the ridings in last spring's election, the majority for the NDP.
(CP Photo)
