A party race does not necessarily guarantee a more democratic outcome.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on July 22, 2019.

OTTAWA—Just last week, the Samara Centre for Democracy denounced the Canadian nomination process as “uncompetitive and biased.”

The organization released a study entitled “Party Favours: How Federal Election Candidates are Chosen,” which reviewed the circumstances surrounding nomination processes in the lead up to the October federal election.

After interviewing more than 6,600 candidates who had run for all parties in the last five elections, Samara concluded only 17 per cent had actually competed for the nomination.

Samara’s take was that “Nomination contests remain too short, uncompetitive, unpredictable, untransparent and exclusionary.”

The report also noted that non-competitive nominations, where parties appoint a single candidate, included fewer Indigenous or visible minority winners who contested nominations.

“Parliament can only ever be as diverse as the pool of candidates that run for it. Nominations designed primarily for insiders, those already plugged into the party and political system, are a major obstacle to achieving a more diverse political class.”

The report said Conservatives had the fewest number of women candidates, and the New Democrats had the most. It also underscored the fact that the Liberals and Tories were more likely to have contested nominations that the smaller parties.

Most Canadians have very little understanding of the internal party processes involved in choosing candidates for election or national party office holders.

There were two factors glaringly absent from the Samara report. First, are the rules governing an incumbent Member of Parliament.

In most parties, there is an effort to ensure that sitting Members of Parliament are actually nominated without a damaging internal fight.

There is a practical reason for giving incumbents a pass on the rigorous nomination process. If you are in Ottawa doing your job, and an opponent is spending all week in the riding selling memberships, it becomes quite simple to knock off a Member of Parliament.

The second factor is the will of the party to be more representative. The reason the Tories had the fewest number of women candidates is because they were the only party that refused to target the nomination of more women candidates in the last election.

That challenge was launched by Equal Voice, a non-partisan organization that encouraged all parties to set a specified number of female candidates in the last election.

Political reality also affects the process. It is sometimes tough for smaller parties to find enough candidates to run in an election, without the benefit of a contested fight.

Just a few months ago, the leader of the Green Party revealed publicly that she had actually offered her own job to former Liberal Jody Wilson-Raybould. At the time, most media focused on the Wilson-Raybould decision not to join the Greens. There was virtually no opposition to May’s proposition that Green leadership was offered to Wilson-Raybould as an enticement to join her party.

The members of the Green Party have a process to choose a leader, but that process did not seem to impact May’s view that she could singlehandedly appoint a new leader.

The reality is that in most circumstances, smaller parties are hard-pressed to nominate candidates, as they stand no chance of forming the government. And when an incumbent is reoffering, the party often eliminates the need for a contest.

In Atlantic Canada, where the Liberals currently hold every seat, almost all Grit incumbents have been renominated without any competition. In the limited circumstances where a member is retiring, contested nominations have already taken place or are about to happen.

Among 32 seats, only three are currently unfilled by the Liberals. But the New Democratic Party, which is struggling in that region, has currently nominated only six candidates, with another uncontested nomination scheduled this week.

The Greens, which experienced a hike in support because of recent provincial seat gains, have actually outpaced the New Democrats with 19 nominees. But most of their nominations were also uncontested, and one includes a former Newfoundland NDP candidate who is now running for the Green Party.

Samara is correct that there are definite problems with party transparency, or lack thereof, in the nomination process. Those problems could be solved by Elections Canada oversight of the process.

Most parties won’t endorse that route because they want to retain control over the choice of party standard bearers. Candidates are not running as Independents. It is understandable that they need to have some attachment to the values of the party they aspire to represent.

But factors governing party nominations are extremely complex. A party race does not guarantee a more democratic outcome.

a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer says he supports equality for women, paying homage to his own mother who sponsored a refugee group during an immigration announcement last week. But his actions, and those of his party, tell a different story.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on June 3, 2019.

OTTAWA—The usual suspects are lining up telling Canadian women to shut up about the abortion question.

Anti-feminist Margaret Wente penned a column last week accusing Liberals of creating a false issue.

Talk show hosts joined with Global Television’s Ottawa bureau chief David Akin to downplay any concern on abortion access in this country.

“Alarming rhetoric aside, there is no serious threat to abortion rights in Canada,” said Calgary talk show host Rob Breakenridge on a Global newsfeed.

Similar pundits went crazy when newly-elected prime minister Justin Trudeau set a precedent by making gender equality a crucial element of cabinet making.

The national press gallery pounced on Trudeau when he left Rideau Hall, demanding to know why he would ever introduce a notion like gender parity in cabinet appointments.

“Because it’s 2015,” was an answer that left them speechless. That same answer prompted millions of women around the country to celebrate the fact that Canada would finally have equal numbers of women and men in cabinet.

Just last week South African President Cyril Ramphosa announced a parity cabinet, joining Rwanda and Ethiopia in the rarefied club of African equals.

If he wins the election, the Canadian leader of the opposition won’t be joining that club.

Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer says he supports equality for women, paying homage to his own mother who sponsored a refugee group during an immigration announcement last week.

But his actions, and those of his party, tell a different story.

Instead of committing to cabinet parity, Scheer leads the only political party in Canada that still refuses to set targets for recruitment of women candidates.

Equal Voice, a non-partisan organization designed to promote the election of more women, polled every party in the last election and all responded with specific goals, except the Conservatives.

Scheer also slapped women in the face when he named a vocal anti-choice advocate as his Status of Women shadow minister, or party critic.

Before the appointment, Member of Parliament Rachael Harder, an anti-abortionist, was reported by iPolitics to have approved $12,000 in federal funding grants to two pregnancy care centres that refuse to refer clients to abortion centres.

Defending his decision, Scheer said, “Harder is a very, very strong, hard working, dynamic young MP and a woman who was democratically elected by her constituents and who shares my positive vision for a government.”

Just what that vision is remains murky.

The following communiqué was sent in 2017 to members of RightNow, an anti-abortion group. The message summarized a meeting held with leadership hopeful Scheer.

“Andrew Scheer has said that the government will not introduce legislation on abortion. When leadership candidates (or even elected leaders) of political parties say that, it means the cabinet. Let’s say the Conservatives win 180 seats in the next federal election and of the 180 MPs, 30 of them are in cabinet. That means 150 other Conservative MPs would be allowed to introduce a private member’s bill on this. He also never said that he would whip his cabinet not to vote for pro-life motions or bills nor did he say he himself would not vote for them either.”

Scheer won the leadership by a vote of less than two per cent. His main opponent was pro-choice. To curry anti-abortion support, he bragged that he had always supported “pro-life” legislation.

In a corollary move last week, Scheer also promised to reopen the Office of Religious Freedoms in Canada, opened by Stephen Harper in 2013.

There is only one other country in the world that has such an office, the United States of America, a country that has been aggressively legislating to reduce access to safe abortions.

In a shocking report from Harvard Medical School, American women today are 50 per cent more likely to die in childbirth than their mothers.

Researchers report that the risk is also consistently three to four times higher for black women than white women, irrespective of income or education.

The death rate per 100,000 women has jumped from 17 to 26 in the past quarter century. Maternal mortality is still lower than in most of the world.

In developing countries, the ratio in 2015 was 239 deaths per 100,000 live births. The World Health Organization cites unsafe abortions as a key contributor.

Former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper blocked aid to international organizations that offered reproductive choices.

Why should Canadians shut up when women around the world die because they cannot access safe abortions?

Scheer tipped his hand in his anti-choice appointment to Status of Women chair. He would reverse women’s gains, on many fronts.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By SHEILA COPPS

First published in The Hill Times on Monday, March 6, 2017.

OTTAWA—This week, Parliament Hill will be overrun by women. Normally, that is not so unusual, as the majority of political and bureaucratic support staffers are women.

But this time, 338 young women will be taking seats in the House of Commons.

Daughters of the Vote, a major national gathering spearheaded by the multi-partisan Equal Voice, will be debating key issues facing Canada in the next 150 years.

Future leaders include 70 indigenous representatives, and women from as far away as the Arctic Circle. Twenty-five speakers will make 90-second statements in the Chamber, on issues ranging from equality for girls and women to humans rights, to immigrant, refugee and resettlement issues.
Daughters of the Vote is a celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday, and the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote in Canada.

It took 50 years for Canadian women to actually secure the right to vote. One hundred years later, we are still far from achieving equality in the House of Commons.

The appointed Senate is much closer, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made it a point to seek equality while changing the way Senators are nominated.

In our highest elected Chamber, the country still has a long way to go.

This week, Canadians will get a chance to see exactly what a Chamber of women would look like.

Kicking off the parliamentary session will be Canada’s only female prime minister, Kim Campbell. She occupied the office in 1993 after being chosen by her party to replace Progressive Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney.

More than 50 current Members of Parliament have signalled their intention to participate in the four-day gathering. All opposition leaders plan to be there and the organizers are hopeful the prime minister will attend.

The meeting is a culmination of political gatherings that have taken place across the country, in 12 of 14 provincial and territorial legislatures, over the past number of months.

Every provincial legislature hosted Daughters of the Vote delegates in the lead-up to this national event. In many instances, Daughters of the Vote were received by premiers in their respective provinces.

What makes the initiative so amazing is that the majority of those attending had never set foot in a parliamentary setting until they applied in an open call to be part of the EV 100th anniversary celebration of suffragettes.
 
And the initiative almost did not happen.

Equal Voice executive director Nancy Peckford and her team started reflecting more than two years ago on the best way to honour the 100th anniversary of real democracy for Canadian women.

EV brainstormed with federal and provincial Members of Parliament, local chapters, and members of the EV advisory board including multiple former women parliamentarians.

The idea of a Hill gathering was attractive, but involved a huge financial commitment for a largely voluntary organization.

Provincial Progressive Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod wanted a big celebration, and she tipped Peckford off to a last-minute 150th birthday call for proposals launched by the Conservative government in June of 2015.

It was so quick that the application for government funding was completed just before a midnight deadline and Peckford conceived the name of the project, Daughters of the Vote, on the back of serviette at a local fast food restaurant in Kemptville, Ont.

The application was subsequently approved by the new Liberal government,
But the ambitious national gathering could not have been possible without major support from sources other than government. The main costs of transporting 338 delegates to Ottawa were absorbed by generous contributions from VIA Rail and Air Canada.

The Canadian Teachers Federation generously supported the initiative with 35 facilitators for the four-day round of meetings and events.

The Toronto-Dominion Bank, Unifor and the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions provided additional funding for the events.

The good news is that this compelling four-day celebration of women’s right to vote is just a beginning.

Equal Voice is planning to work with these young leaders, to keep them engaged and encourage them to run for the real Parliament. EV plans to build upon their wide-ranging group of active local chapters across the country. The future will include the development of a series of regional policy networks designed to assist women in their quest for political equality.

That includes support and information on being a candidate and encouragement and advice for engagement behind the scenes as political organizers and fundraisers.

We can only hope it won’t be another 100 years before the celebration of the right to vote includes real gender equality in Parliament.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era Cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Notwithstanding all Sen. Nancy Ruth’s good work, last week’s cheese outburst will sadly constitute her Senate legacy.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on April 2, 2015.

Notwithstanding all Sen. Nancy Ruth’s good work, last week’s cheese outburst will sadly constitute her Senate legacy.

OTTAWA—Let them eat cheese. Or maybe not, according to the latest maladroit sortie from the Senate.

Senator Nancy Ruth is known for blunt candour. She is someone who charts her own course, Camembert be damned.

A twice-failed Progressive Conservative candidate, she was appointed to the Senate by Liberal prime minister Paul Martin.

The Senate’s first openly declared lesbian, Ruth crossed party lines in the last provincial election to support Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne.

Nancy Ruth eschews the normal Canadian convention of having a last name.

She traded in the Jackman nomenclature she was born with for a Senate appellation that combines her first and middle names.

Her family tree boasts an impressive, bipartisan political pedigree spanning three generations. Her grandfather was the leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, her father was a Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament, and her brother Hal Jackman, is a respected philanthropist and former lieutenant governor or Ontario.

Nancy Ruth has been active politically and financially in support of quality causes for years. She founded the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund, (LEAF) the Canadian Women’s Foundation and a women’s studies chair at Mount Saint Vincent University.

LEAF is probably the single most significant catalyst for women’s equality challenges to the Canadian status quo.

She sits on the advisory board of Equal Voice, a national, non-partisan body devoted to promoting the election of more women to the House of Commons.

Notwithstanding all her good work, last week’s cheese outburst will sadly constitute her Senate legacy.

Anyone familiar with the current climate of fear in the Red Chamber will understand how Nancy Ruth’s boiling point was reached.

But the public has zero tolerance for high-flying, cheese-eating politicians, so the defence of her breakfast expense claim fell on deaf ears.

How much of the so-called Senate scandal is really based on fact, and how much is simply the result of a political pileup against an outdated institution?

Senator Mike Duffy’s criminal trial starts this week complete with eye-popping, hand-wringing revelations that will go right to the Prime Minister’s Office.

Pre-emptive PMO damage control started in earnest last week.

According to news reports, the Senate’s criminal net is spreading wider, with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police filing documents to build a case against Senator Pamela Wallin. Cpl. Rudy Exantus outlined 150 misreported invoices, including expensing of a trip to Toronto for an election night broadcast as a Conservative pundit, a partisan act the police claim is a personal activity.

That statement itself exposes a grave police misunderstanding of the work of a Member of Parliament.

If television appearances are deemed “personal” in nature, not a single leader should be allowed to defend party policies on air except from the foyer of the House of Commons.

And if political broadcast attendees are guilty of misuse of Senate funds, what about the parties that vet panel participation?

How can Wallin be guilty of expensing a political appearance but party event organizers are somehow innocent of participating in the fraud?

That makes about as much sense as the police charging Mike Duffy for receiving a benefit, and exonerating Nigel Wright for paying it.

A simple review of the nature of the expense claims filed with the court, will reveal something a lot more scandalous than misfiled expense claims.

Senators sitting on private boards put themselves in an untenable conflict of interest, not with the cost of a plane ticket but with the decision-making neutrality required of public office holders.

Wallin sat on the board of CTV, and Porter Airlines, amongst others. Both those organizations are federally chartered and depend on the national government for their licences to broadcast and fly.

The real Senate scandal is that Parliamentarians are even allowed to sit on private boards while they are appointed to serve the public interest.

This conflict is huge, and has nothing to do with bad cheese trays.

No doubt, opaque accounting methods, and sketchy conflict rules are the entrails of a bygone era.

But a lack of transparency and clarity in Senate rule making is sinking the whole system.

It is just so much easier to simply trash the Senate than to clean it up.

The Nancy Ruth Camembert cauldron last week made for great copy.

And it became another nail in the coffin of Senate credibility.

Her impolitic comments reinforced the image of an out of touch Senate elite.

Our collective obsession with eating habits and disinterest in real Senate substance is painful to observe.

But that’s politics, eh?

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

I have recently taken on responsibility for the Liberal Party’s Judy LaMarsh fund. In the next few months, Liberals across the country will organize activities in support of the Judy Fund. Please join Liberal Member of Parliament Dr. Carolyn Bennett at the end of the month at a Parliamentary Scaraoke Party. Just follow my web link and I will see you there. If you want to host your own party, email me at info@sheilacopps.ca.
The Annual General Meeting of Equal Voice is also happening across Canada this Saturday. EV is a multi-party, non-partisan organization devoted to increasing the number of women in parliament.

In the Liberal Party, our national leadership race includes a number of incredible candidates. Each person brings a unique perspective. Over the next number of months I will be inviting all candidates to connect with you via my website.

The first person presented here is a strong woman considering a run for LPC leadership.

Vancouver-Quadra Member of Parliament Joyce Murray was my British Columbia Co-Chair in last January’s campaign for Party President. First elected federally in 2008, Joyce was environment minister in the provincial cabinet from 2001-2004. She is committed to creating a vibrant 21st Century economy that protects and restores the environment rather than damaging it. A mother of three, Joyce’s vision for a new liberalism combines healthy democracy with a sustainable society, so today’s young people and their families can enjoy the freedoms and opportunities of past generations.

Joyce’s public and private sector track record includes co-creating an environmental enterprise that employs hundreds of young people, and innovating environmental policy.

To help Joyce, or find out more, email her at joycemurray@telus.net or check her website www.joycemurray.ca.

With Joyce, Justin Trudeau, via justin.ca and many other talented candidates, our party is vigorous, forward thinking and determined to provide a positive alternative. There is an opportunity to help a strong candidate for LPC leadership!