This could finally be the year women are taken seriously
Elizabeth May, female premiers and parties’ top campaign leaders already playing key election roles
It’s not looking like we’ll see Canada’s four political leaders on stage debating women’s issues during this election.
But when the history of this long, long campaign is written, we will be able to say that women themselves — as premiers, campaign chiefs and even one leader — were all big players in the 2015 election.
Green party Leader Elizabeth May, first of all, ably proved in Thursday night’s Maclean’s debate why she shouldn’t have to keep fighting for a place in the debates with the guys. As an aside: why does a duly elected national party leader still have to fight to be taken seriously, by the way?
Analysis from Facebook indicated that May sparked more social media discussions than NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair and that one of her remarks — about greenhouse gas emissions declining during the recession — sparked the most conversation of all during the debate.
Moreover, any suggestion that May’s presence would distract from the debate, or make it less “streamlined,” was demolished with her strong, often eloquent performance in the midst of the sparring among the other party leaders.
Actually, “performance” is the wrong word. Rather than treat this as a sporting event or a bit of theatre, May seemed to approach the debate as a chance to speak to viewers and voters as sentient beings.
That’s a rather novel, adult concept in a campaign that has so far featured controversy over whether to mention Justin Trudeau by his last name — or at all — as well as deep thoughts on whether the Liberal leader would wear pants to the debate.
In an interview on CTV’s Power Play the night before the debates, May was asked how she was getting ready for Thursday’s event.
“I prepare almost as if I was studying for an exam. I want to make sure that the facts and figures I want to use are at the tip of my tongue,” the Green party leader said. “I don’t practise lines. I don’t even write lines. I think the secret to being an effective debater is not much of a secret — it’s listen to the question that’s being asked, and then answer it.”
It’s hard not to notice, as well, that the two provincial leaders playing walk-on parts in the campaign so far — one willingly, one less so — are Ontario’s Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne and newly elected Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley.
Wynne signalled almost immediately after the election was launched last Sunday that she would be campaigning against Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, and in favour of Trudeau. So it’s not surprising that Harper would put Wynne in the crosshairs. Notley, however, was hauled somewhat unexpectedly into the fray when Harper summarily dismissed her tax policy in Alberta as an “absolute disaster.” Really? After less than four months in office?
These two women premiers have already proven they can fight their own battles and it’s unlikely they were fussed by the hint of condescension in Harper’s reply to the Star’s Tim Harper this week, on how Wynne and Notley had become Conservative campaign targets.
“I think I will observe what a senior official told me when I took office. They said your best relations will be with the premiers who are doing a good job in their own jurisdiction,” Harper said, in his Father- Ottawa-Knows-Best voice.
Who decides whether premiers are doing a “good job”?
Perhaps the Alberta and Ontario premiers are having their qualifications reviewed by that same team of actors in the ubiquitous Conservative ads, deciding whether Mulcair or Trudeau is up to the task of PM. I am looking forward to the ads, by the way, in which this hardmarking team explains how sena- tors Mike Duffy and Patrick Brazeau, or former security review chief Arthur Porter, cleared the Conservative resumé-vetting process.
The 2015 election is already remarkable for the presence of three women at the top of the campaign organizations for the Conservatives, New Democrats and Liberals — respectively, Jenni Byrne, Anne McGrath and Katie Telford.
It’s probably too early at the mo- ment to see how that milestone is reflected in the tone or conduct of a campaign that still has many weeks to unfold.
And while the political pundit class is still dominated by male columnists and opinion leaders, it’s heartening to see women journalists such as Rosie Barton, at CBC’s Power & Politics, or CTV’s deputy bureau chief, Laurie Graham, weighing in on the coverage with insights, not just observation.
So while only May and Trudeau have signed on so far for the proposed debate on women’s issues in this campaign, this is already an election that has strong women in it, playing strong roles. Which proves, when you think about it, that one really doesn’t need to wear pants to be taken seriously in Canadian politics in 2015. sdelacourt@bell.net