It’s International Women’s Month and the federal government is taking a look in the mirror and acknowledging that more can be done in the fight for women representation in politics.
The Government of Canada’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council shared a study that explains how violence and harassment act as barriers that keep women and underrepresented people out of politics, and in turn the effect this is having on democracy.
Tracey Raney, a professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Toronto Metropolitan University, publishedher research centering around the conversation about women in politics on Wednesday.
“Public policies and decisions made on behalf of Canadians are better if there’s a diversity of voices at the table, but those voices are being silenced,” Raney wrote. “We need to look at how to change that.”
After the 2021 federal election, women held 30 per cent of the seats (103 of 338) in Canada’s House of Commons.
That’s apparently the highest percentage the country has ever had. Since then, the country has moved further down in numbers.
To make matters worse, Canada ranks wildly low in the world for women’s representation in the national legislature.
The nation ranks 61 in the world for women’s representation in Parliament. Rwanda came in at number one in the monthly ranking.
Through her research, Raney found that racialized women are disproportionately targeted by violence and harassment. And that this mounting issue takes place at every level of government and in every party.
“I think it’s critical work,” Raney said. “When all citizens can’t participate on an equal playing field due to gender- and race-based violence, the democratic process is weakened.”
Women first entered the legislature in 1917. Between that year and 2000, 618 women were elected or appointed to the Parliament of Canada, and provincial and territorial legislatures, according to the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians (CWP).
Louise McKinney and Roberta MacAdams were the first women elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in 1917.
Agnes Macphail became the first woman elected to the House of Commons In 1921, and was the only woman to serve in the 14th Parliament.
Read more: Five fearless Black women who left their mark in Canadian history
Rosemary Brown, a Jamaican-Canadian politician was the first Black woman elected to a provincial legislature in Canada in 1972, according to the Legislative Assembly of B.C.
In 1993, Jean Augustine made history as the first African-Canadian woman to be elected to Canada’s House of Commons.
