A debate we need to have

You’d think in an 11-week election campaign there would be a chance to focus for at least a couple of hours on issues of specific interest to women. After all, women are not only a majority of the population, but a majority of voters. In 2011, half a million more women than men cast a ballot.

Yet 31 years after the federal party leaders of the time met to debate “women’s issues” at the Royal York Hotel, their modern-day counterparts can’t — or more properly won’t — agree to talk about the concerns of more than half the electorate.

That’s wrong, especially in light of the lack of attention paid to women’s issues in the only debate held so far during this long campaign.

How bad was it? During the Maclean’s debate on Aug. 6, there was no discussion of women’s rights and gender equality issues. Notes Kelly Bowden of Oxfam: “Life and death issues impacting women and girls in Canada are invisible in the federal election campaign.”

More worrying is the fact that no matter how much has changed since the last — and only — federal debate on women’s issues in 1984, the most troubling problems have not gone away.

As Up for Debate — the coalition of 175 groups pushing for a women’s debate — points out, women continue to earn 20 per cent less than men for the same full-time work, are more likely to be poor, and do twice as much unpaid work at home. Tragically, they also continue to be victims of violence: since 1980, more than 1,000 aboriginal women and girls have been murdered and each day more than 8,000 women and children seek protection from violence from a shelter.

Caroline Andrew, who moderated the last debate, has written that many of the issues the leaders debated then “continue to be just as pressing today as they were back in 1984.”

Certainly, there’s enough to discuss in a leaders debate focusing on women’s issues. What it comes down to is rank political opportunism and partisan calculation.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper must bear the lion’s share of blame for that. It was his party that began the current squabble for advantage in the debates by dumping the long-agreed formula for leaders encounters in favour of cherry-picking the venues likely to be most advantageous for him. And he refuses to accept the invitation from Up for Debate.

Harper clearly believes it’s not in his interest to debate women’s issues on a national stage if he wants to keep the election campaign focused where the Conservatives feel their strength lies: on the economy and national security. By manipulating the kinds of debates he takes part in, he’s trying to control a big part of the election agenda.

That leaves his opponents scrambling to react. NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, as the leading challenger, won’t take part in any debate that doesn’t include Harper. That’s understandable, but it’s disappointing that he would not accept the Up for Debate invitation. Justin Trudeau of the Liberals and the Green Party’s Elizabeth May, of course, have happily agreed to take part since they have everything to gain by more exposure.

In fact, the party leaders should welcome more opportunities to showcase their ideas on a host of issues as diverse as the environment, science, First Nations — and, of course, women’s issues. This is the longest campaign in modern Canadian history, and there’s no excuse to limit debate.

In fact, there’s still plenty of time for Harper to do the right thing by women voters and change his mind on the invitation from Up for Debate.

If he doesn’t — and we’re not holding our breath — all voters should take that into account when they go to the polls on Oct. 19.

Stephen Harper is wrong to refuse a debate on women’s issues