IS EQUITY POLICY LINKED TO NDP’S PRECARIOUS POLITICAL FOOTHOLD?
It took only a century, but for the first time there are as many women as men in British Columbia’s cabinet.
The New Democrats were the first major party in the province’s history to have more female candidates than male. Although the electoral results suggest voters are gender blind, the B.C. NDP’s two milestones didn’t happen because of its gender blindness.
It only happened because of a concerted and controversial effort — an equity policy that requires retiring male incumbents to be replaced by candidates who are female, visible minorities, Indigenous, disabled or LGBTQ.
Of the 28 cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries appointed by Premier John Horgan, 10 are also visible minorities.
While the policy’s results warrant celebration, there are indications it also had some unintended consequences — consequences that contributed to putting the party in its current precarious position of only a one-seat majority even with the support of the B.C. Greens. In particular, there are three seats the New Democrats should have, could have and maybe would have won except for the equity policy. For three terms, the NDP’s Bill Routley represented the Cowichan Valley. But when he decided not to run again, the party’s riding association president was barred from running because — as the song goes — “I’m just a man.”
So, Ian Morrison quit and ran as an Independent, hiving off votes from the New Democrats. Morrison didn’t win, but nor did the NDP. The riding was won by Green party deputy leader Sonia Furstenau by a 708-vote margin over New Democrat Lori Iannidinardo.
Throughout 16 years of Liberal government, Columbia RiverRevelstoke was also staunchly NDP until Norm Macdonald decided he’d had enough.
Spring Hawes filed her nomination papers. On paper, she seemed an ideal candidate. Not only is she female and does she use a wheelchair since suffering a spinal cord injury, Hawes had political experience as a councillor in Invermere.
But Hawes lost the nomination to Invermere Mayor Gerry Taft. He declared himself an equity candidate — bisexual, he quietly told party officials, only disclosing his minority status after defeating Hawes. Taft lost the riding to the Liberals.
(To be fair, it wasn’t just the nomination battle that soured some voters. Taft spent the first two weeks of the campaign unsuccessfully defending himself against a defamation suit from an animal-rights activist.)
Then there was VancouverFalse Creek, where Morgane Oger was touted by the New Democrats as the party’s first and only transgender candidate. She took an early lead against Liberal incumbent Sam Sullivan. Then, pamphlets began appearing throughout the riding using biblical references to attack her as “defying God’s definition of gender.”
During the campaign, she did tell me that she was concerned that some older women — “transexclusive radical feminists,” or TERFs, as she called them — might not support her because she has advocated strongly that transgender women, regardless of what stage they are at in their gender transitioning, ought to have access to all of the available support services for women including transition houses for those escaping violence.
Oger lost to Sullivan by 560 votes.
As symbols, the milestones of having B.C.’s first genderbalanced cabinet and an inner circle with nearly as many visible minorities as those from the majority are politically significant for the New Democrats.
The gender balance addresses a long-standing inequity both in the legislature and within the party itself, while the ethnic diversity looks forward to the near future when whites will be a visible minority in Metro Vancouver, which is the New Democrats’ stronghold. But beyond symbolism, does it matter?
Not necessarily. If it were axiomatic that gender informs policy, then former premier Christy Clark would likely have brought in universal child care and enhanced spending on education. She opposed both.
What will likely prove more important for women than Horgan’s gender-balanced cabinet is his promise that every ministry’s spending will be put through a gender lens.
The Economist recently explained gender budgeting as analyzing government spending to determine its differing impacts on men and women and allocating money accordingly.
As an example, it noted women are disproportionately affected by low welfare rates because they earn less to begin with and are more likely to be single parents. Similarly, it said women are impacted more by lack of child care because they end up doing more unpaid work at home, which constrains their ability to participate in the paid labour force.
Gender budgeting has been used in countries as different as Rwanda and Austria. In Rwanda, it resulted in more girls going to school. In Austria, more women joined the paid workforce because taxes on secondary earners were reduced.
Of course, entrenching gender analysis into government’s budgeting processes takes time, and time — because they don’t have a majority of seats — is one thing that Horgan, Finance Minister Carole James and their colleagues may not have enough of to effect real change.