The good news is that the majority of his ministerial choices have been sound. With a few exceptions, most ministers have been able to move forward on an activist government agenda. His female roster is strong, capable and in charge of their files.
By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on July 23, 2018.
OTTAWA—Barack Obama is not the only one who says men are getting on his nerves.
Men in positions of power who don’t seem to understand when they have crossed the line are getting on my nerves.
Just last week, Pablo Rodriguez replaced Mélanie Joly as minister of Canadian Heritage. One man replaced one woman in a cabinet change. Joly did not lose her job, she was shuffled into a different portfolio.
In addition, five newbies were added to the roster, including two women and three men.
So why does a seasoned journalist write that a “parade of men” had been “called on to clean up the messes others could not.”
Others is code for women, as there are no transgendered members of the cabinet yet.
Why would The Globe and Mail carry a blazing headline that reads “Trudeau deviates from the diversity script.”
Talk about misleading sexist claptrap.
In a featured opinion piece garnering coveted top billing across from the daily editorial section, journalist Konrad Yakabuski called the decision to replace Joly by Pablo Rodriguez a blow to “the sisterhood.”
Does Yakabuski really think a parity cabinet with women in senior portfolios including foreign affairs, justice, environment, and health is a downgrade to women?
Or is he amongst those scribes still smarting over the quip that shut down journalistic criticism of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s original commitment to equality almost three years ago?
“Because it’s 2015” was an answer that silenced the initial vocal backlash to the prime minister’s gender equal cabinet.
The Yakabuski narrative, that men have been brought in to clean up women’s messes, featured by the Globe, promotes the notion that somehow the “weaker sex” is simply not up to the job.
But the facts do not bear out this opinion piece. In the last few months, much of Canada’s heavy lifting, on the trickiest economic file facing the government, has been done by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland. She has had to navigate the murky waters of Washington, staring down a dictatorial wannabee and accomplishing it with a rapier tongue and the aplomb of a diplomat.
Likewise, the trickiest federal-provincial files, the move to legalize marijuana and fight climate change, have been stickhandled by two very capable ministers, in justice and environment, who also happen to be women.
Yakabuski claimed Trudeau “deviates from his own script, which we noted because he drew attention to diversity in his first cabinet.”
But then he offers absolutely not one shred of evidence to back up his claim. On the contrary, cabinet positions are still split equally among women and men, and the prime minister is continuing a trend which has changed the face of Canadian politics forever.
Any new prime minister who tries to ignore the established equity principle will do so at their peril.
The notion that somehow women need to be cleaned up after needs to be exposed for what it is, the ranting of an out-of-touch scribe who simply does not get it.
On the same editorial page where Yakabuski makes his claim, there are two other opinion pieces, one written by a man, the other by a woman.
On the opposite page, in letters to the editor, there are seven letters submitted by men and one submitted by a woman. Not surprisingly, the editorial page editor also happens to be a man. The first five names on the Globe masthead are all men, from the deputy editor to the executive editor to the managing editor.
On the front page that same day, every single political story from Ontario, Ottawa, and Washington was written by men; five of them and not a single contribution from a woman.
It is not surprising that a misleading narrative on diversity would pass muster with this male-dominated editorial team.
Parity may be good for politics, but it is not a media priority. Instead, journalists are still not-so-subtly promoting the notion that the men in cabinet are stepping in to save us from incompetence.
When Trudeau made world news by insisting on parity in his first round of cabinet choices, the biggest pushback actually came from the media.
The good news is that the majority of his ministerial choices have been sound. With a few exceptions, most ministers have been able to move forward on an activist government agenda. His female roster is strong, capable and in charge of their files.
If anything, the balance of cabinet excellence is tipped in favour of women. They are obviously getting on someone’s nerves.
Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.
