N.B. election promises more female candidates

New Brunswick's two major political parties are on pace to have more women on the provincial election ballot in September.

When the legislature adjourned this spring, only six of 55 MLAs were female and the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives were under pressure to add more women to their ranks.

The nomination process is underway as New Brunswick's political parties gear up for the Sept. 27 election. The Tories have already nominated 11 female candidates, which is more than the seven from the 2006 campaign.

Meanwhile, the governing Liberals have managed to have seven women nominatedas candidates. Party officials say there will be at least three more which would equal the 10 nominated in the last election.

Riverview Liberal candidate Lana Hansen said candidates should be judged on their merits but women do bring particular strengths to politics.

"It is an asset because it does bring a whole gamut of experience and compassion and perhaps negotiation skills that are more predominantly developed sometimes in women," Hansen said.

Premier Shawn Graham has been criticized for lacking more women in his cabinet for most of his mandate. Graham named both Mary Schryer and Carmel Robichaud to cabinet in 2006, but Robichaud was dropped after only a relatively short stint around the executive council table.

In the latest cabinet shuffle this spring, Graham added Nepisiguit MLA Cheryl Lavoie as the minister of state for seniors and housing.

Political diversity

Marie-Claude Blais is running for the second time as the Tory candidate in Moncton North, which his traditionally a Liberal seat. She narrowly lost in 2006 to high-profile Liberal incumbent Michael Murphy, who resigned as justice minister in January to spend more time with his family.

Blais, who also served as the provincial Tory party's executive director, said it is important for provincial caucuses to have representation from a cross-section of groups.

"You cannot have all of the same persons with all the same background. You can't have all lawyers, you can't have all business people, you need people from different backgrounds," Blais said.

The two main parties are not the only ones striving to put more female candidates on the September ballot.

So far, three of the eight NDP candidates that have been nominated are women.

While the Green Party has made the bold promise that in its first time fielding candidates in a New Brunswick provincial election that half its candidates will be women.

Pressure on politicians

The lack of women in politics was evident after the 2006 election when seven females were elected. Rose-May Poirier left the assembly earlier this year after Prime Minister Stephen Harper named her to the Senate.

Six female MLAs represents about 11 per cent of the 55 seats in the legislature whereas women make up 51 per cent of the province's population and the assembly has never had more than 20 per cent of its seats held by women.

A multi-party organization called Equal Voice opened a chapter in New Brunswick last year with the specific purpose of bringing more women into provincial politics.

Provincial politicians have studied the issue of how to add more female colleagues in the past.

The Commission on Legislative Democracy, which was set up by the former Tory government and reported in 2005, addressed the low number of female politicians in provincial politics.

The main recommendation in its 2005 report was to switch to a mixed-member proportional system of electing MLAs. The report listed the percentages of female politicians in a number of countries, and those with some form of proportional representation all elected more women.

Another of the proposed reforms was to offer political parties an extra $1 per vote if they had women make up 35 per cent of the party's candidate slate.

However, none of the committee's proposals were put in place because Bernard Lord's Tories were defeated in the 2006 election.