Record number of women elected to B.C. legislature may be highest in Canada

Political buffs like me look for trends in elections and lately they've been depressing, like the shrinking voter turnout in national and provincial polls.

So here's some good news in the political trend department: Just over a third of the people elected to the B.C. legislature in last Tuesday's vote were women.

Of the 85 seats, 29 were won by women — 15 Liberals, 13 New Democrats and one Independent. That's just over one third, thought to be a record percentage in Canada.

The tally likely could grow to 30 seats when Liberal Premier Christy Clark, who lost her Vancouver seat, gets back into the legislature via a byelection. It depends on whether a male or female Liberal MLA steps aside in favour of Clark, CTV News points out.

Interestingly, although the NDP nominated more women than the Liberals —32 versus 30 — the incumbents got more of theirs elected. The Green Party nominated 13 women and the Conservatives seven, CTV News said.

With this election, British Columbia nips Quebec for bragging rights to the highest percentage of women in their respective legislatures.

Quebec elected 41 women to the National Assembly last September, 32.8 per cent, while the percentage of female B.C. MLAs now stands at 34.1 per cent. If a male MLA gives up his seat for Clark, it would rise to 35.3 per cent, according to Equal Voice, which works to elect more women to political office in Canada.

[ Related: Kathleen Wynne's win a victory for women in politics ]

Ontario elected 30 women in its 2011 election, which brought the percentage up to 28 from 25, Equal Voice said. In last year's Alberta election, a total of 23 women were elected, compared with 17 in 2008, boosting the percentage almost six points to 26.4 per cent.

Equal Voice's Alberta South chapter chairwoman, Janice Kinch, noted the April 2012 election produced the province's first elected female provincial premier in Canada, Alison Redford, as well as its first female Official Opposition leader in Wild Rose's Danielle Smith.

Quebec's Pauline Marois led her Parti Quebecois to a minority win last September. B.C.'s Clark, who won the Liberal leadership in 2011, remains an unelected premier pending a likely byelection victory.

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Kathy Dunderdale led the Conservatives to their third straight majority in 2011.

Nunavut's elected Eva Aariak, who was its legislative assembly's only woman, as premier in 2008.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynn, who won the Liberal leadership in January, still has to face the voters.

Federally, a record 76 women won seats in the House of Commons in 2011, including 28 among the majority Conservatives, filling a quarter of the 308 seats.

At the time, Equal Voice said Canada now ranks among the top 40 countries in the world in female representation, CBC News reported.

[ Related: B.C. Premier criticized for joke about her ex-husband ]

The United Nations has set 30 per cent as the minimum benchmark for female representation in legislative assemblies. Many of the countries that meet that standard use quotas to achieve it, the UN says.

Although Equal Voice was gratified by the number of women elected to the B.C. legislature, "we are still a long way from gender equality in the representation of women in BC’s highest democratic institution," B.C. chairwoman Carolyn Jack said.

"We again call on political parties to nominate more female candidates in winnable ridings in the next election.”

The group noted the number of women NDP candidates was actually down from 41 fielded in the 2009 election, while the Liberals' 30 candidates was a high for the party, compared with 25 in 2009.