Women in Politics

Stephane Dion has been criticised for appointing, some women, in some ridings. He's doing this of course in an effort to meet his goal of having one third of Liberal candidates be female.

While we would all like the process of achieving this goal to involve only elections, I think at this stage it is premature to expect that to be realistic. Star candidates come to the fore and sometimes the right to appoint should be exercised, in order to achieve not only your goal of candidates, but to make real change in the make up of the Party and Parliament.

The most recent appointment is Dr. Kirsty Duncan. From Dion's announcement:

“Kirsty is an extremely accomplished person. She is an internationally-renowned health expert on pandemic influenza, global warming and the environment. She was on the team of Nobel Prize winning Canadians for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Kirsty is a professor, author of two books, and a sought-after speaker at international conferences.”

She's obviously someone that would be nice to have on the team. Could she have won a nomination race? I think so, but the demographic of the area has changed and apparently Cullen, whom she is replacing was undermined somewhat by the riding association. I read yesterday that it was replaced rather unceremoniously in 2006 I think, and Cullen was caught of guard. Damned if I can find the article though.

That said, while I admire Cullen for his service, he was becoming a relic. He is of the Manley ilk. Hawks in the Party still exist, but those who survive are able to adapt to the reality of contemporary thinking. He seemed somewhat adverse to that.

Anyway, back to the point. In appointing another woman, Dion has actually exceeded his goal. With this appointment the percentage of female Liberal candidates is at 36%. That's good news in my view. For those who are screaming about the process, 79 women are candidates and only 4 have been appointed.

What that tells me is that many Liberal women have risen to the challenge, 95% in fact and when Dion saw a star he reacted in an effort to change the complexity of parliament. I don't see that as a bad thing.

If every woman was appointed I would see that as a major problem, not just for the Lib's but for the country. That's not the case though. My desire is to have every woman fight for the candidacy, but we aren't there yet sadly and I think criticism of Dion is ill founded and not productive.

Media looking for news here are not being honest about the state of what is. The Con's have a mere 16% of their candidates who are women. In the world, we are ranked 47th I think as it relates to how many female parliamentarians comprise our Commons. I believe we are below Rwanda and Afghanistan.

Media. If there is a way to change this, why shouldn't it be done? These people if elected still need to perform to stay there, so let's watch these 4. Let's make decisions then.

My advice would be back off your faux indignation and look at really is going on in the country under Harper. Somehow you seem to miss that.