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1993 – PM Kim Campbell; 2015 – Cabinet gender parity

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October 16, 2015

1993 – PM Kim Campbell; 2015 – Cabinet gender parity

By Andrew Cardozo

History on the move
June 25, 1993: Kim Campbell becomes the first woman as Prime Minister
November 4, 2015: The first federal cabinet with gender parity

In September 2014, the Pearson Centre and Famous 5 Ottawa co-hosted two event to mark Campbell’s 21st anniversary as Prime Minister. (Picture taken at the luncheon at the National Arts Centre)

November 3, 2015: Cabinets need to reflect society

What a kerfuffle about gender parity in cabinet….and this in 2015.
Forty-seven years ago, Pierre Trudeau’s first cabinet had no women.
We need to stop and think about the purpose of the cabinet. The cabinet has two main functions. It is an administrative body and it is a political body that collectively makes decisions about the country. You need strong administrators and you need people who represent the country. Some ministers arrive tailor-made for their portfolios, others rise to the challenge over time and some flame out.
You will never find twenty-five or thirty people suited to that number of portfolios, so a number of ministers get chosen for their general competence and for their reflection of the society they are to govern.
Regional representation has always been a key part of cabinet making. Is that a quota? Very much so. There is a minimum of one per province, and in some cases when the governing party had no MPs elected from a particular province or region, senators have filled in. Pierre Trudeau had up to four in his last government to represent the three western-most provinces and Stephen Harper had one in his first government to represent Montreal.
Gail Shae was a permanent fixture in Harper cabinets as the only MP elected from Prince Edward Island, moved around several times, perhaps because she didn’t find her niche, but she filled the quota and from PEI’s perspective, a good thing.
Ralph Goodale will be in the new cabinet in part because he is the only Liberal MP from Saskatchewan, but no one doubts his administrative skills having served in senior roles in the Chretien and Martin cabinets.
Official language ability is another criterion. Prime Ministers try to ensure that there are as many bilingual ministers as possible, and certainly some very capable MPs won’t get picked because of their lack of fluency in both languages. Some will consider that a travesty, others see it is essential for a federal cabinet minster.
There are other areas of traditional aspects of inclusion. Including various factions or aspects of the party. Brian Mulroney appointed many MPs who had opposed his leadership including rival Joe Clark, and even reached back to George Hees who had served in Diefenbaker’s cabinet.
Len Marchand was the first First Nations cabinet minister appointed by Trudeau in 1976, and there have been at least one Indigenous member appointed by prime minsters thereafter.
Herb Gray was the first Jewish member of a federal cabinet and most cabinets since then have included between one and three Jewish members, Joe Oliver being in Harper’s most recent cabinet. There are six Jews in the new Parliament, all Liberal Herb Dhaliwal was the first Sikh member in cabinet, Ujjal Dosanjh the second, and now there are some twenty Sikhs in the Liberal caucus. And that is probably it for non-Christian members of cabinet to date.
In terms of ethnicity there have been a variety. Lincoln Alexander was the first Black cabinet member in Clark’s cabinet, Raymond Chan the first Chinese-Canadian and Rey Pagtakhan the first Filipino-Canadian, both in Chretien’s cabinet. Charles Caccia was the first Italian Canadian appointed by Trudeau in 1981 and there have been several since then: Sergio Marchi, Joe Volpe, Julian Fantino, to name a few.
There have always been other aspects – urban and rural, young and old, business and social background, lawyers and non-lawyers, politically experienced and rookies. It is all these things.
Sometimes there is a sense that the white male is still the norm and anybody outside that description is affirmative action. No one questioned John Manley’s appointment to cabinet in 1993, but think about it, he had been a relatively low profile lawyer in Ottawa. He turned out to be one of the most senior ministers. So yes, white men can turn out pretty good, but so can the Bonnie Raitts, the Ujjal Dosanjhs, the Monique Begins.
So here we are in 2015, and the Liberal leader back in June promised he would have cabinet of an equal number of men and women. It hardly got reported. And suddenly there’s all this chatter. Thing is it’s not the first gender-parity cabinet in Canada. Jean Charest appointed an equal number eight long years ago in Quebec and Rachel Notely did likewise in Alberta in May of this year. We have had several woman premiers – a high of six women, three presently.
I was chatting with a young man in a coffee shop the day after the election and he said he voted Liberal because Trudeau had promised gender parity in cabinet. To him that reflected what politics should be. May be the consternation is just generational.
The new cabinet will reflect many aspects of experience, our demography, our history and the regions of this vast land. It’s about cabinet reflecting the society it seeks to govern.

October 15, 2015: Trudeau could have plenty of talent to deliver on gender parity for his cabinet

Justin Trudeau promises to have gender parity in his cabinet. He announced that in his Democracy package back in June and was asked about this on the weekend and reaffirmed his position.
So who are the women who could make up his cabinet if the Liberals win?
Before we go there, some observation on the women in the other parties: Lisa Raitt is widely considered an effective Transport minister and Rona Ambrose as good a Health minister as possible in a Conservative government not particularly seized with the issue. Leona Aglukkaq has been a disappointment, albeit too over managed from the Prime Minsters Office and Diane Finley, as close to a non-entity as imaginable.
The NDP would have some effective ministers in Peggy Nash from Toronto and Megan Leslie from Halifax, and Olivia Chow from Toronto.
In a 30-member cabinet, Trudeau has to pick 15 strong female candidates and with the current momentum, here is a list of 21 candidates, all with a good chance of getting elected.
Starting on the east coast is Judy Foote who was first elected as an MLA in the Newfoundland and Labrador legislature and served as minister in industry, trade and technology.
In Quebec one of the new candidates is lawyer and social activist, Melanie Joly, who burst on the Montreal stage in the last year, almost beating the seasoned Denis Coderre for the Mayor’s job.
Also in Montreal is Marwah Rizqy , an international tax law expert and professor who has worked with various major corporations and banks. Linda Lapointe is a business woman and former Member of the Quebec National Assembly, running just north of the city.
Ontario has some seasoned MPs, Carolyn Bennett, a medical doctor who has valiantly fought to raise issues of Aboriginal affairs and has been a long-time advocate of more women in politics. She was also the junior health minister in Paul Martin’s government.
Other experienced MPs include Judy Sgro and Kirsty Duncan from the Toronto area. Sgro has been Immigration minister in the past and was an effective industry critic, and Duncan has been a long-time activist on health and environmental issues. A newer member, Chrystia Freeland, who was elected in a by-election last year, is a journalist and author in economic affairs and was a potent international trade critic in the last parliament, a natural for a senior economic portfolio.
Jane Philpott is running just north of Toronto and is a possible health minister. A family doctor she has been chief of the family medicine at Markham-Stouffville Hospital and a professor at University of Toronto. Shaun Tanaka an academic at Queens and University of Toronto in urban and social geography is another accomplished newcomer to politics.
In Brampton Ruby Sahota is a lawyer specializing in areas of criminal law, litigation, and dispute resolution at the national and international level, and in Cobourg, Kim Rudd is a past president of Willis College and the Cobourg Chamber of Commerce.
In the Ottawa area there are several stars, Anita Vandenbeld and Catherine McKenna both have international development experience – Vandenbeld in building democracy and McKenna in law and human rights; and Karen McCrimmon is a former lieutenant-colonel in the Canadian Forces, a trailblazer in the air force.
In the Cornwall area there is Bernadette Clement, a lawyer and city councilor for three terms.
In Manitoba, MaryAnn Mihychuk , former provincial MLA and ministers of industry and mines (albeit as a provincial New Democrat) has ministerial experience.
If the Liberals were to make a breakthrough in Alberta, Karen Leibovici has been elected as a member of Edmonton City Council and the Alberta Legislature and was president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, a position once held by Jack Layton. And in Calgary there is Nirmala Naidoo, a prominent journalist and TV anchor for many years. Interestingly, her sister, Indira Naidoo-Harris, also a Liberal and former broadcaster, was elected to the Ontario legislature last year.
Vancouver has two experienced MPs. Hedy Fry who first defeated then, Prime Minister Kim Campbell in 1993 in Vancouver Centre and has held the one-time bell weather riding for longer than anyone. She was multiculturalism minister in the Chretien days and has been an effective health critic in recent years. There is also Joyce Murray a former provincial minister of environment and of government services.
Jody Wilson-Raybould is former crown prosecutor, treaty commissioner and Regional Chief of the Assembly of First Nations and a Liberal star candidate.
And while we are on the subject, there are several male potential cabinet member candidates too with a good chance of winning seats. Among the candidates for Finance minister and other economic roles, in addition to Freeland there is Ralph Goodale who occupied the finance portfolio for two years under Paul Martin, current finance critic Scott Brison, Bill Morneau, a Bay Street business leader and social activist and Jim Carr from Winnipeg, a former Manitoba MLA and head of the Manitoba Chamber of Commerce. And from Quebec are Francois-Phillippe Champagne an international business person.
In Defence there could be retired general Andrew Leslie from the Ottawa area and Mauril Belanger who was associate minister of defence under Martin, also an expert on cultural and national identity issues.
In justice and national security roles there are Marco Mendicino, a crown prosecutor running against Joe Oliver and former police chief Bill Blair, both from Toronto, and former solicitor general Wayne Easter from Prince Edward Island.
Also on the east coast are Dominic LeBlanc a lawyer and experienced parliamentarian who is a confidante of Trudeau, as is former fisheries minister from Nova Scotia, Geoff Regan.
In Ontario Peter Fonseca from Mississauga is a former Ontario minister of Labour and of Tourism and Recreation and Navdeep Bains also from Mississauga is a former MP and a visiting professor at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University. Bob Bratina has been mayor of Hamilton since 2010. In Toronto MP Adam Vaughan, being challenged by Olivia Chow, a former city councilor who has had a lot of input into the party’s urban agenda, and Michael Levitt is an experienced businessman and community activist in the north of the city.
In Quebec, there is former Liberal Leader and environment minister Stephane Dion, former astronaut, Marc Garneau who has been an effective foreign affairs ciritc, and Emanuel Dubourg, elected in a recent bi-election who was a member of the National Assembly. Jean-Claude Poissant is a major figure in the agriculture and milk producing industry in Quebec, where he has been a leader with the Fédération des producteurs de lait du Québec. With the TPP trade accord he could make a good agriculture minister. Jean-Yves Duclos is Director of the Department of Economics and a tenured professor at the Université Laval and co-founder of the Poverty and Economic Policy Research Network. Denis Paradis is a former MP and Minister of Stare for Financial Institutions under Paul Martin. Anthony Housefather is the Liberal candidate in the hotly contested Mount Royal and the popular mayor of Côte-Saint-Luc within the riding.
Steven Kou in Vancouver is a former executive director at the Bank of Montreal, and VP of Canada Chinese Investors and Entrepreneurs Association, and Hunter Tootoo is running in Nunavut, a former MLA, minister and speaker of the territorial legislature
There are actually many more who have considerable economic and business experience and other fields such as health, Indigenous affairs, national defence and culture. Seemingly no shortage of potential for ministers and Parliamentary committee members.
Andrew Cardozo is president of the Pearson Centre for Progressive Policy and is an adjunct professor at Carleton University.

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