Women in Canadian Politics

Women In Canadian Politics

Gender representation has been a significant issue in Canadian politics.

The first woman elected to the House of Commons of Canada was Agnes Macphail, in the 1921 election. Although female representation in politics has increased since then, and several political parties have identified increasing the number of female candidates as an organizational and political goal, no major Canadian political party to date has achieved gender parity in the number of candidates nominated for election.

Political parties have occasionally achieved balanced representation in their elected caucuses, but mainly as a byproduct of a party collapse – for example, in the 1993 election, the Progressive Conservatives achieved gender parity in their elected caucus, but only by virtue of electing just two Members of Parliament nationwide and losing official party status. At various times, parties have also had 100 per cent female representation in their caucuses, but again only by virtue of having a caucus that consisted of just one or two members. The Yukon New Democratic Party attained the distinction, in the Yukon general election, 2011, of becoming the first party with official party status ever to have an elected caucus that was more than 50 per cent female, with four women and two men elected as MLAs.

As of 2010, Canada ranked 50th in the world for women's participation in politics, with women holding just 23 per cent of the seats in federal, provincial and territorial legislatures. At the federal level, Canada was tied with Mauritania for 49th place.