Canada ranks 61st in the world for women’s political representation (as of Aug. 2023). So, what needs to happen for women to achieve parity in politics? / Le Canada se classe au 61e rang mondial pour ce qui est de la représentation des femmes en politique (selon les données d'août 2023). Alors, posons-nous la question : Que faut-il faire pour que les femmes atteignent la parité en politique?
This Gender Equality Week, join Heidi Yetman, CTF/FCE President, for a conversation about women’s political representation in Canada with Shari Graydon of Informed Opinions. / En cette Semaine de l’égalité des sexes, joignez-vous à la présidente de la CTF/FCE Heidi Yetman, qui discute de la représentation des femmes en politique au Canada avec Shari Graydon, de l’organisation Femmes Expertes.
This episode discusses: / Dans cet épisode, nous traiterons des sujets suivants :
The Balance of Power campaign; / la campagne « L’équilibre des pouvoirs »;
The gender gap in Canada and around the world; / l’écart entre les genres au Canada et ailleurs;
Measures other countries are taking to ensure a balance of power in politics; /les mesures que prennent d’autres pays pour assurer l’équilibre des pouvoirs en politique;
Importance and benefits of gender parity in politics; / l’importance et les avantages de la parité des genres en politique;
Explore an interactive map to see how women are represented across Canada: https://shorturl.at/lxNP4 / Explorez une carte interactive pour voir dans quelle mesure les femmes sont représentées au Canada : https://shorturl.at/cL012
(Balado en anglais, accompagné d’un document en français et en anglais présentant les faits saillants)
The Source podcast is produced by the CTF/FCE in Ottawa, on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe People. / La balado Source est produite à Ottawa, sur le territoire traditionnel non cédé du peuple algonquin anichinabé, par la CTF/FCE.
Views expressed do not necessarily represent the policies nor the views of the CTF/FCE. / Les points de vue exprimés dans cet épisode ne représentent pas forcément les principes directeurs ou les points de vue de la CTF/FCE.
Shari Graydon:
We're 61st ranking compared to other countries around the world. There are 5 dozen other countries that are doing better. And in some cases, much, much better than our 30.5%.
Julieanna Mawko:
Hey there, and welcome back to Your Source, connecting you to the stories behind Canada's education ecosystem. We're pleased to bring you a new episode just in time for Gender Equality Week with award winning author, speaker, and advocate Shari Graydon. Shari founded and leads Informed Opinions, a charitable non profit amplifying women's voices. Previously, she was a newspaper columnist, TV producer, political press secretary, and seasonal lecturer in communications in BC. In this episode, Heidi Yetman, CTF/FCE President, connects with Shari to discuss the balance of power campaign, the gender gap in Canada's politics and around the world, measures other countries are taking to ensure a balance of power in politics, the importance and benefits of gender parity in politics, and much more. We hope you enjoy our conversation with Shari.
Heidi Yetman:
Welcome, Shari. It's so great to have you here. I was really lucky because I was able to attend a couple of Women's Symposiums where you spoke and it's really cool to be speaking with you today. You're an amazing speaker and I really enjoyed hearing you at both of those women's symposium. So let's start by tell me a,
Shari Graydon:
So I've been not a lifelong feminist, but I've been actively involved in working on the issue of how women are represented in the news media as a journalist, as an advocate for a very long time, and Informed Opinions, which was started 14 years ago, really works just to amplify the voices of women and gender diverse people for a more democratic Canada. And we're a national charitable feminist organization and we train and motivate women with informed opinions, hence the name, to speak up and share their insights more broadly. We make it easier for journalists to find them by running a database of experts and we conduct research to document the progress that we're making.
Heidi Yetman:
Yeah, I was looking at the website. Lots of really good information. I also noticed that there's a campaign going on. It's called Balance of Power campaign. Can you tell us a little bit about it?
Shari Graydon:
I'm thrilled to tell you about the Balance of Power campaign. This has been a labour of love for the last couple of years. We have a gender gap tracker that monitors in real time the ratio of men versus women being quoted, because we're trying to determine are we making progress and when we did a deeper dive into that research, we discovered that the majority of men and women being quoted most often in Canadian media are elected officials. And so when we realized that we realized, okay, we can't achieve our mandate until women achieve parity in politics. And so that's why we're playing in this space. Our campaign is working to focus attention on the inequity in our political spaces. And, like the news media, politics has the power to affect everything else, every aspect of our lives. Politicians are making decisions, whether it's where they build the roads or where, when, what kind of housing we have to all of the other health and social justice infrastructure that exists. So women being absent from those discussions or really marginalized, and especially women of color, indigenous women, their voices are even further underrepresented. And so that's why we're focusing on politics.
Heidi Yetman:
So what's this gap look like? I looked at the website and I saw 30 point something percent in Canada, and we are 50 percent women sitting here in this country. So maybe talk a little bit about that gap.
Shari Graydon:
So, yeah, we're at 30.5 percent at the federal level, but from province to province, there's quite a big gap. So Newfoundland is 20%. Saskatchewan, 20%. BC is 44, I think, and Quebec is 45, and Northwest Territories is actually 53 percent women. So there's a huge disparity. And our message in part is it shouldn't matter where you live that you should be equitably represented. And, when you think about it, women are half the talent pool. We are today as educated as men, as capable of governing, of coming up with good policies. And our daily realities are so different still than men. I've been married to a lovely man for 30 years, but my reality is probably in some respects closer to yours, to a woman living in Nunavut in some respects than the lovely man I married. And we accept that representation is important. That's why Quebec has 22 percent of the population and 22 percent of the seats. Women are 50%. We deserve 50 percent of the seats.
Heidi Yetman:
What about people that say, well, it should be about qualifications and the best person to get the job? What do you say to that?
Shari Graydon:
The short answer is, look at who's in our elected houses and you will find people who are not necessarily there on the basis of merit, who are not the best and brightest. I think that's one of the things that makes people cynical about politics is seeing that people get there in part on the coattails of their leaders. And here's something that I found so interesting when we looked at research from around the world on the introduction of quotas, because one of the reasons we're so far behind and we can talk about that many other countries are not at 30. They're at 50 or 49 or 48 and those countries that are doing so much better than we are. They have quotas in place. They have gender quotas. And the research in Sweden, for example, found that after the introduction of gender quotas that required parties to have as many women as men, the quality of the candidates who were elected actually went up and the elected officials ended up having better qualifications, being better prepared for public life. And the researchers concluded that the reason for that was that quotas eliminated mediocre men.
Heidi Yetman:
Mediocre men. I've heard that before. I think that's great to hear because a lot of people say, well, they should be qualified. And, it has nothing to do with gender, but I always disagree with them. I think the same thing is if we can get women at the table, women have a tendency and maybe, you can confirm this, have a tendency to put in policy that is not only good for women and children, but good for everyone.
Shari Graydon:
Absolutely. That's what the research finds. And also let me be clear that there are lots of really capable men. So this is not a, in any way, a dismissal that women are better than men. But it's very clear that if you make parties run candidates of women and men, they don't get rid of the really highly qualified men. They, take the people at the bottom of the list and they replace those with really highly qualified women. And here's another thing that I think is at play. And that is that women have to be asked multiple times, often to run. One of the reasons for that is that we've been socialized to believe that if we don't have something to say, if we don't have something to add that's valuable, we're not going to engage. And so when a woman does engage, she's already had to overcome her internal barriers around, do I know enough to make a contribution?
Heidi Yetman:
The imposter syndrome. That's what I call that. Well, you know, of course here we are at the Canadian Teachers Federation and basically there's 75 percent of teachers are women. And we're very happy here to have quotas on our executive. And we got those a few years ago at our Annual General Meeting and I'm very happy to say that they're working very well. So, why is it so fundamental to have more women at the table then, like, how does that affect democracy?
Shari Graydon:
In so many ways. And, we probably won't know all of them until we are at 50%. But well, let me give you some concrete examples. Some of the research finds that women again, partly a function of socialization. I'm not saying we're wired this way from birth, but we're more likely to collaborate across party lines. That's one of the things that has been found. Absolutely. There's a greater tendency to look at policies from a family oriented perspective.
Heidi Yetman:
It kind of reminds me a little bit of Pauline Marois in Quebec who started the subsidized daycare,$10 a day, and that increased the number of women that went back to work, which increased the tax revenues for Quebec. And therefore for every dollar spent, it's like something like a dollar 20 back into the pockets of the government. So it's a big, huge investment. So Shari, how does Canada measure up to other countries in terms of women's representation in politics?
Shari Graydon:
Surprisingly poorly. And, you know, I was shocking to me to discover when we started on this campaign that we weren't 20th or 25th. But in fact, we're 61st ranking compared to other countries around the world. There are 5 dozen other countries that are doing better. And in some cases, much, much better than our 30.5
Heidi Yetman:
Yeah, I was looking at that list and I noticed the top of the list is Rwanda and then followed by Cuba, which I think a lot of people would be surprised by that.
Shari Graydon:
Many people are surprised. I was to learn that many central and South American countries are doing much, much better than we are. And although not all of the countries above us are beacons of democracy, I think Rwanda would be among those, it is really clear the country that are doing much better have been really deliberate about bringing in policies and measures that will guarantee women a minimum level of representation because they recognize that representation is fundamental to democracy and women deserve to be there.
Heidi Yetman:
Like New Zealand and Mexico, they're both countries that have a balanced parliament. So what are those countries doing to make sure that's happening?
Shari Graydon:
It's so interesting. So New Zealand, which used to have a first past the post system, much like our own, they got rid of that and replaced it with proportional representation in the 1990s. And that has supported them in achieving fourth position. In fact, almost all of the countries that are ahead of us are using a different form of electoral system than we have. So our first past the post system is one of the barriers to women achieving parity and Mexico rewrote its constitution. And I say that with caution, because I know nobody in Canada wants to re open constitutional talks, but that's the level of engagement that other countries are making to ensure that there's a balance of power.
Heidi Yetman:
Well, you know, of course, being from the CTF/FCE, I'm on the board of directors here. And, obviously we look at who's on the board of directors and there's been some years where there've been more women and we think, okay, we're there, we're done. And then a year later all these elections happen, and we no longer are there at the table. So I guess we're constantly in this battle. And I think that's why policy is so important. And, reglamentations are so important.
Shari Graydon:
I couldn't agree more. At the provincial and federal level, it shouldn't be up to which party is in power, or it shouldn't be, subject to the vagaries of one election versus another. We don't say, well, BC, we're not going to allow you to have as many seats in this parliament because your citizens voted differently. And I think that this is what has been recognized around the world.
Heidi Yetman:
I remember seeing this photograph of the premieres across Canada in 2019. It was the summer of 2019 in Saskatchewan. And I was like, shocked. It was 13 men dressed in suits. So we have a lot of work to do. We have three women now that are our premiers. But we have a lot of work to do for sure.
Shari Graydon:
We had six women premiers at one time, at one very brief moment. And the other thing that I think that raises is that, leadership is important, but just because you have a woman premier doesn't mean that women are effectively represented across the legislature. Here in Alberta, for example we were at 32%, in the provincial legislature, we just had an election. Now we're up to 38%. There were two women leaders: the premier and the leader of the opposition were both women, but the composition of their candidates and caucuses was really different. And so the reason we went up was not because of the government that we elected. It was because there was a good compliment from the opposition party and the opposition's candidates were 50 percent women. So, leadership matters, but policy matters even more.
Heidi Yetman:
Absolutely. So, what can we do to support this incredible work that you're doing?
Shari Graydon:
Well, listeners can visit the Balance of Power website. We have lots of interesting resources and research on there. We have a sign up form that allows you to be updated when we launch new initiatives. And we're actively encouraging people to get engaged in a concrete way by writing their MLA or their MP, by buttonholing politicians and parties and saying, what is it that you're doing? This is what we know, sharing the information and the research that is available on the website to encourage decision makers, because we know that politicians and parties have the ability to make a difference.
Heidi Yetman:
So before we wrap up, are there any last thoughts, anything that you would like to add?
Shari Graydon:
Yeah, I think it's really just so valuable to remind us that the way change happens, it doesn't just happen. Women make change happen for women. When you think about the last hundred years, the only reason we got the vote was because women marched in the streets and demanded it. The only way we got maternity leave was because women demanded it. The way we got sexual assault laws, the way we got childcare, the child tax credit, those were all initiatives that women demanded. And if we're not at those tables making those decisions and we don't have equal voice, we're not likely to get the policies that benefit us most profoundly.
Heidi Yetman:
Well, thank you so much, Shari, on behalf of CTF thank you for speaking with me and thank you for the work that you do to amplify the voices of women. It's super important work, so thank you so much.
Shari Graydon:
It's my pleasure, and it's always my pleasure to collaborate with the Canadian Teachers' Federation. Thank you.
Julieanna Mawko:
Thank you for joining us for this episode with Shari Graydon. To learn more about the Balance of Power campaign and how you can get involved, check out the show notes for links to resources mentioned by Shari, including the Balance of Power website, additional resources such as an interactive map that illustrates the gender disparity across Canada, a backgrounder and a template letter to send to your MP to advocate for greater gender balance in politics. Thank you for tuning in to your Source.