More women in power

Canada’s federal politicians are talking a good game about the future of women’s politics, but right now, I’m not sure Canada has a lot more to point to than does the United States.

On Tuesday, December 10th, at an Equal Voice Foundation event, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reportedly said, “everywhere, women's rights and women's progress is under attack,” and pointed to United States voting in a male president again, recently, as compared to a female one, for example. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh stated, if things don’t change “you're going to have the same system, and the same system is going to benefit those already in power.”

The fact of the matter is, Canada, at a federal level, may have female MPs in cabinet roles, but there is a lack of this presence in leadership. The only major federal party with a female leader is the Green Party, led by Elizabeth May. The Prime Minister is a man, the official opposition is led by a man and the NDP is led by a man. One may ponder, whether this represents an effort to reduce the influence of women at the top or if it is due to lack of aspiration for these roles by women.

Through Canada’s history, there has only ever been one female prime minister, the Conservative leader Kim Campbell, in 1993. She only served 132 days, as Prime Minister, hardly being given the opportunity to get her feet wet. She was defeated in a smear campaign style, landslide election, going from 156 seats to two seats.

It’s been 31 years since a woman held the Prime Minister’s office in Canada. Having said this, our country has still never had a female federal party leader win an election, to become Prime Minister, with Kim Campbell having been appointed while the Conservative Party still held power. Yes, the U.S. hasn’t had a female president, yet, we’ve not had a woman properly elected as prime minister either.

Of the 13 Premiers in Canada, only two of them, presently, are women, Danielle Smith in Alberta and Susan Holt in New Brunswick. This means only 15 percent of Canada’s provincial leaders are women.

And from the sounds of it, if the federal Liberal Party was to make a leadership change, it would likely be a male representative taking the job. The scuttlebutt is, Mark Carney is the favourite for the job.

Unless things move in a different direction, and we get more female party leaders, it seems the 2025 federal election will continue a trend, of shutting women out of the highest office in Canada. I guess we all still have a long way to grow.