Gender balance demands N.B. electoral reform

New Brunswick must overhaul its electoral process in order to boost the number of women in the legislative assembly, according to a University of New Brunswick professor.

Joanna Everitt, a political scientist at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John, writes in an election analysis for CBC News that simply looking at how more women are running in an election is misleading.

"Incumbency and the tendency for both the Liberals and Progressive Conservative parties to nominate men in 'winnable' ridings may mean that unless there are some major upsets in this election, we may actually find ourselves with fewer women elected after Sept. 27 than before the election," Everitt writes.

Elections New Brunswick will close the nomination process on Tuesday, giving a clear understanding what level of gender balance political parties were able to give to their respective slate of candidates.

Everitt points out that 61 women had been nominated to run for their parties as of Sept. 2, nearly double the number nominated in 2006. Women were on pace to represent 29.5 per cent of the candidates, an increase of nine percentage points from the 2006 election.

But Everitt said that doesn't mean more women are going to be in the legislature. Only six women are running in ridings where their party won in the last election, she writes.

There were only six women sitting in the 55-seat New Brunswick legislature — less than 11 per cent of the MLAs — when the election was called.

Reform proposals

Everitt co-authored an article for the province's Commission on Legislative Democracy in 2007 that addressed ways to improve gender balance in the legislature.

The commission, which was struck by former premier Bernard Lord, made a series of recommendations, including changing the way MLAs are elected and giving political parties more money for nominating more female candidates.

'Providing additional support to parties who get more of their female candidates elected would give them greater incentive to seek out and nominate women in their winnable ridings.' — Joanna Everitt

Lord had committed to holding a referendum on changing the province's electoral system but he his government was defeated before the vote could take place.

Shawn Graham's Liberal government was not supportive of the measure and did not push forward with the planned vote.

Everitt writes that adding a financial incentive could help political parties ensure that more women have their names on the ballots every four years.

"We already provide significant public support to our political parties through the refunding of campaign expenses," she said.

"Providing additional support to parties who get more of their female candidates elected would give them greater incentive to seek out and nominate women in their winnable ridings."

Another way to ensure a legislature that better reflects the population would be to retool how political parties choose their candidates.

Everitt said party nomination fights are biased toward electing men.

"If a winnable seat does become vacant its nomination process is frequently more hotly contested. In winnable ridings, the backroom boys (they are seldom girls) often decide in advance who they want as the candidate," Everitt writes.

"Their decisions are based on their networks (more likely to be comprised of men than women), and on who they think is most likely to win."