New group aims for more women in N.B. politics

A new organization is forming in New Brunswick to reverse the traditionally low number of women in politics.

'It's the very nature of the business, which seems to be overly combative, often can be very nasty and negative, and most of the women I know tend to focus on consensus-building.' — Lisa Merrithew

Party leaders have promised in the past to recruit more women, and different studies have recommended various ways to get more of them involved.

But those tactics seem to have failed, as New Brunswick currently has only seven female MLAs and one female cabinet minister.

Seven MLAs represents about 12 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.

Lisa Merrithew, a well-known Progressive Conservative insider in the province, is trying to change that by setting up a New Brunswick chapter of Equal Voice, a national organization designed to get more women into elected office.

Merrithew said there are many reasons more women don't run for office. 

"It's the very nature of the business, which seems to be overly combative, often can be very nasty and negative, and most of the women I know tend to focus on consensus-building," she said.

Merrithew has worked on successful leadership campaigns at the federal level. She was former New Brunswick premier Bernard Lord's deputy chief of staff and served as a senior strategist in the party's unsuccessful 2006 election campaign. Merrithew's name was also widely circulated as a possible leadership candidate after Lord resigned, but she ultimately decided not to run.

A multi-partisan organization

Although Merrithew is closely tied to the Progressive Conservatives, she said the provincial chapter of Equal Voice is going to be a broad-based, multi-partisan organization.

"When you bring together a group of people from many different backgrounds, many different political parties, diverse views, and you start to map out a plan, I think that's where the real power happens, when it's a concerted effort," she said.

Sonya Gilks, a spokeswoman for the province's women's issues branch, said the establishment of Equal Voice is a welcome step.

Status of Women Minister Mary Schryer "and the women's issues branch are familiar with Equal Voice, and are pleased to see a chapter may soon be established in New Brunswick," Gilks said. "Minister Schryer is very supportive of their concept and has committed to participate."

Equal Voice hasn't yet decided exactly how it will try to get more women on the ballot. Merrithew said once the group holds a first meeting and chooses an executive, it will map out a strategy leading up to the 2010 provincial election.

Issue studied in 2005 report

The latest government-sponsored study exploring how to get more women into the legislative assembly came with the Commission on Legislative Democracy, launched by the Lord government.

The commission's 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.

One of the other recommendations aimed directly at adding more women to the legislature was to give 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 recommendations were implemented as the Tories were defeated before they could institute any of the proposals.