Of the thousands of candidates running for municipal office, more than 50 fifty per cent do not currently hold an elected position — and many of the new faces are women.
“As a woman, I’ve always felt like I’ve had a place,” said Quebec City council candidate Marie Josée Savard.
Running with current mayor, Régis Labeaume, there are more women candidates than men, but even in 2017, that’s not the norm.
READ MORE: Quotas only way to get 50% women in politics, says Montreal writer
Municipal elections are happening across the province on November 5th. There are 12,924 candidates for 8015 mayor and councilor positions, of which 31 per cent are women (up from 25 per cent in 2005).
There are 385 women vying for the position of mayor including Valérie Plante with Projet Montréal and Christina Smith, who is currently the interim mayor in Westmount.
“Last term, 17 per cent of mayors were women, and that number is really low,” Smith said.
READ MORE: Gender inequality persists in Canada, around the globe: Ipsos poll
Smith said that she’s been criticized for her appearance and not acting more like a man.
“I hope that type of treatment goes away and what I’m wearing, or my hair is no longer a topic of conversation, and more what I’m committing to do for the city,” she said.
- Some 2019 candidates ‘appeared willing’ to engage with foreign interference: Hogue inquiry
- Foreign interference ‘undermined’ public confidence in elections: inquiry
- Princess Anne to help commission new navy vessel in B.C. ceremony
- Canada, Manitoba to develop Red Dress Alert for missing Indigenous women and girls
The Fédération Québécoise des Municipalités actively tries to encourage more women to run, having created an award in honour of the first female mayor in Quebec — Elsie Gibbons, who was mayor of Portage-du-Fort in 1953.
The organization’s first recipient will be Chantal Ouellet, mayor of Scottstown.
“There are times when things get really nasty and I think women are more sensitive to that and I think it turns them right off,” said Scott Pearce with the Fédération Québécoise des Municipalités, who is also the outgoing mayor of Gore.
READ MORE: NB group Women For 50% pushes for gender equality in government
Pearce, who is also an anglophone, knows firsthand how nasty local politics can get.
“One election, someone sent a letter door to door in my town that a vote for me would be a vote for the hatred of French people and the blue flag of Quebec,” Pearce said as an example.
He said those kinds of personal attacks turn off good candidates in general — men and women.
Comments