A Question of Gender Balance in the Ontario Provincial Election Campaign

Is there an issue with female representation in Canadian politics? If a country is known as a democratic nation, then a full and equal amount of representation for both genders should exist. According to www.equalvoice.ca, while women comprise up to 52% of the total Canadian population, they still “make up only an average of 21% of Canada’s municipal councils, provincial legislatures and the House of Commons.”

With the Ontario provincial election just three days away, it might be interesting to take a step back and look at the number of women who are running for the four main parties:

Green Party of Ontario – 25 women candidates out of 107 (23%)

Progressive Conservative – 21 women candidates out of 107 (19%)

Ontario Liberal Party – 42 women candidates out of 107 (39%)

Ontario New Democratic Party – 39 women candidates out of 107 (36%)

The Ontario Liberal party and the Ontario New Democratic Party have the highest amount of females running for various ridings. As well, the ONDP have the additional impact of having Andrea Horwath as their leader. These two parties have the highest amount of female candidates, yet they are still no-where close to breaking the halfway mark.

While Canada is one of the world’s developed nations, it is surprising when our government is not entirely representative of the population. There are many nations across the world that have only just begun to let women vote at all. It is a bit disconcerting to me that none of our parties, big or small, are able to have even close to 50% female representation. It is not even guaranteed that any of these women will win, meaning that the percentage of actual representation in the house will be less than what is stated above.

What do you think can be done to increase the role of women in politics? What does the fact we need to have this discussion say about the state of Canadian democracy?

Anita Chauhan
Social Media Lady