Women in Canadian Politics - Personal Aspects

Personal Aspects

As in the United States, many of Canada's earliest women to hold political office attained their positions through the practice of widow's succession, in which they were appointed or elected primarily as a caretaker to political offices that had been held by their deceased husbands. This practice became less common as the number of women in politics, and their resulting prominence and power, increased over the course of the 20th century.

In 1985, Pauline Marois became the first woman in Canadian history to give birth to a child while serving as a provincial cabinet minister. She was followed in 2001 by British Columbia Member of the Legislative Assembly Christy Clark.

In 1987, Sheila Copps became the first woman in Canadian history to give birth to a child while sitting as a federal Member of Parliament. In 1999, Michelle Dockrill became the first Member of Parliament to bring her newborn baby into the House of Commons.

Women in politics still sometimes face a double standard, with their personal lives subject to greater scrutiny than those of men in equivalent positions. In what some commentators have characterized as an example of sexism, Clark was asked by several journalists to explain how she could properly do her job as provincial Minister of Education while simultaneously raising a newborn child; her then-husband, Liberal Party strategist Mark Marissen, was not asked the same question despite holding a similarly busy and high-profile public position.

When Clark announced her candidacy for the 2011 British Columbia Liberal Party leadership race, she was again asked by journalist Bill Good how she planned to balance her role as a mother with the responsibilities of serving as provincial premier if she wins – to which Clark answered,

Similarly, following Clark's victory in the leadership race, Global Vancouver anchor Chris Gailus was criticized for asking her in an interview whether her new job as premier would leave her any time to date.

While sitting as a provincial MLA in Manitoba, Judy Wasylycia-Leis gave birth to a child in 1988, and was dismissed by another MLA as "a high-priced babysitter" when she set up a playpen in her office and took time out from a committee meeting to breastfeed.

Both Copps and Campbell wrote in their autobiographies that their romantic and family lives were excessively scrutinized by colleagues and journalists. In the 2006 book The Secret Mulroney Tapes, Brian Mulroney – Campbell's immediate predecessor as Prime Minister – asserted that Campbell's romantic relationship with Gregory Lekhtman distracted her from conducting a proper campaign in the 1993 election. He did not, however, elaborate on how Campbell's personal life constituted a greater distraction to her political career than his own family life with his wife Mila and their four children did to his.

Similarly, when Belinda Stronach crossed the floor from the Conservatives to the Liberals in 2005, political reaction to her announcement took on a very different tone than similar moves by male politicians – while David Emerson, for instance, was criticized in a relatively civil manner for the ethics of his floor-crossing, Stronach was variously labelled a "dog", a "dipstick" and a "whore" by her former colleagues.

In her autobiography Time and Chance, Kim Campbell claimed that her own campaign staff sometimes treated her more as a figurehead than as the actual leader of the party, even going so far as to keep campaign offices at Brian Mulroney's preferred room temperature even if Campbell ordered them to adjust the thermostat.