Women at the Palace gates
The manner in which Doug Ford arrived as Ontario’s premier-designate — anti-establishment outsider, hugely popular with his base, little specific by way of promises, few political IOUs outstanding — has left him wide latitude for governing once he takes office.
So, what if he was to do something counterintuitive and wrong-foot his critics right out of the gate?
What if Ford announced a cabinet with gender parity when his Progressive Conservative government is sworn in next week? What if he were to do so with a Trudeauvian shrug and smilingly say, “Because it’s 2018”?
If Ford did combine that initiative with granting the ragged Liberal survivors of his landslide official party status, he would appear so generous and surprisingly progressive that he might buy himself a big dollop of goodwill from even the most skeptical of Ontarians.
Something significant happened on June 7 beyond the change of government.
Ontario voters broke records by sending women to Queen’s Park in 49 of the legislature’s 124 ridings — just a tick under 40 per cent. That’s the highest percentage of any legislature in the country, and it provides sufficient critical mass to make the Pink Palace an experiment over the next four years in how politics might be conducted differently with a significant female presence.
Sylvia Bashevkin, a University of Toronto professor, has said the absence of women from high office in proportion to their numbers has left Canada with an “unfinished democracy.”
She developed a shorthand to explain: “Women plus power equals discomfort.”
Few fair minds could observe the personal savagery of attacks on Hillary Clinton in the United States or Kathleen Wynne in Ontario and not concur.
In addition to the vitriol, it’s the “relentless dissection” of women in ways seldom done to males, Bashevkin wrote, that “makes it well-nigh impossible for women leaders to operate effectively, dissuades talented individuals from pursuing political careers, and reduces the likelihood that average citizens will feel comfortable with seeing women on top.”
It is to be hoped that a legislature in which women hold 40 per cent of the seats will start to undo that.
To be sure, women do not automatically bring to politics a dewy-eyed maternal sensibility or inevitable qualities of civility, compassion and an instinct and aptitude for collaboration.
In Ontario, no one ever accused the likes of former MPPs Bette Stephenson, Shelley Martel, Sandra Pupatello or Cheri DiNovo of being tender flowers. A look south of the border shows White House staff, spokespeople and cabinet members such as Kellyanne Conway, Sarah Sanders and Kirstjen Nielsen just as capable of duplicity and ruthlessness as any man.
Nor, before anyone notes the cant to the right of most of the above, does the sisterhood of Trump opponents have much claim to sweet innocence when comic Samantha Bee has called the president’s daughter Ivanka a “feckless c---” on TV.
Still, hope springs, if not eternal, at least anew. As Jennifer Palmieri wrote in her recent book Dear Madam President, women will “bring an entirely new perspective to leadership.”
This was a change election. The opportunity for it should not be missed.
At a minimum, Ford should allot 40 per cent of his cabinet portfolios to women. That wouldn’t be at all difficult. Presumably, for reasons of symbolism and expense, he will announce a slimmed-down ministry. Let’s say he has 24 portfolios. From his newly elected caucus, it’s easy to see a dozen women worthy of inclusion.
There’s a photo from the election campaign in which Ford is in Ottawa, cheek by jowl with former leadership rivals Christine Elliott and Caroline Mulroney and caucus stalwart Lisa MacLeod. Those three are slam dunks for cabinet. Jane McKenna from Burlington should be too, along with Sylvia Jones, Laurie Scott and Lisa Thompson from the pool of experienced MPPs. Many of his female newbies have talent.
One-third of PC MPPs are women. Forty-eight of Ford’s 76-member caucus (including himself ) are legislature rookies, who will significantly lower the average age of his caucus. So Ford has a chance to remake the party in terms of gender, generation and geography.
It’s an intriguing possibility. One of the things Ontarians seem to have said is that they are dissatisfied with business as usual in politics. In fact, it is not extreme to say that the loss of institutional legitimacy was one of the engines driving Ford’s victory.
As Bashevkin has written, “Women’s presence as public actors confirms, while their absence weakens, the legitimacy of basic democratic practices.”
So by appointing more women to cabinet — and to important posts therein — Ford has a chance to enhance the legitimacy of a forum he has so often railed against.
The responsibility for positive change also rests with the incoming tide of fresh MPPs.
Their first decision should be to abandon the long-standing practice of backbenchers checking their spines and consciences at the door as they arrive at Queen’s Park and deferring to unelected backroom advisers in leaders’ offices.
The MPPs put their names on ballots. They subjected themselves to the scrutiny and judgment of their communities. They were given the high honour of representing their ridings and taking responsibility for people other than themselves.
They should not sell short the meaning of that authority.
Ford can remake the party in gender, generation and geography