More women must run for public office

A national project to get more women running for municipal councils that just received a substantial federal grant is on the right track.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) won’t use the money to support women who run for office, but to figure out how to make it easier to convince women to run.

Experience in Peterborough shows that if women run, they can win. Not always, but often.

Status of Women Minister Maryam Monsef, who announced the $547,300 grant yesterday, knows both sides of that equation.

Monsef, MP for Peterborough-Kawartha, ran for mayor in 2014 as a 29-year-old political rookie.

She lost to the incumbent but showed well. Shortly after that, she challenged for the local federal Liberal nomination and won. She won that election and was appointed to Justin Trudeau’s cabinet.

Fast forward to the municipal election in October. Coun. Diane Therrien, also young and relatively inexperienced, challenged the incumbent mayor and defeated him.

In that election, three of seven women running for seats on city council won. That’s a 50 per cent success rate: eight women candidates, four elected.

Male candidates didn’t do as well: seven of 19 were elected, 37 per cent.

It’s a small sample but local history backs up those results. If women run, they can win. The challenge is to get more of them on the ballot.

And the record shows that is a challenge. A recent study published in the Canadian Journal of Political Science looked at who ran for mayor in 300 elections covering three election cycles in the 100 largest Canadian cities. Only 16 per cent of candidates were women.

Other research has found similar results for all municipal council positions. Women are badly underrepresented.

That’s a problem. Society is stronger when elected bodies reflect the world around us. The 50+ per cent of the population that is female can’t be expected to feel confident they are getting fair representation in the law and policy making chambers when they see so few women making the decisions.

Which is one reason why FCM’s Committee on Increasing Women’s Participation in Municipal Government has set a goal of 50 per cent representation by 2026.

In Ontario, that’s two more elections. It’s an ambitious goal, some might say unrealistic.

Yet Peterborough’s experience suggests otherwise. It was two elections ago that Monsef challenged incumbent Mayor Daryl Bennett and lost, Therrien ran as a newcomer in Town Ward and won, Coun. Lesley Parnell led the polls in Otonabee Ward and two other female, first-time candidates finished third in their wards.

All those newcomers were supported by a highly organized group of campaign workers determined to get more women, and particularly young women, elected.

In 2018 that organized effort continued. Kim Zippel ran again and won. Three of five candidates vying to replace Therrien in Town Ward were women and one, Kemi Akapo, won.

(As further evidence that voters will elect “nontraditional” candidates, Akapo and Steven Wright were both elected to council. They were the only persons of colour running: two for two.)

With four women now on council, including the mayor, getting to six two elections from now is entirely realistic.

That’s a necessary goal for many reasons. Not least because when only a small segment of half the population seeks office their tremendous potential value can’t be tapped.