Kinew on right track to develop diverse caucus

Opinion

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This article was published 09/06/2017 (3043 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Provincial NDP leadership candidate Wab Kinew recently announced the formation of an informal committee that will both advise him on diversity issues and work to bring about gender balance in his party caucus after the next election.

There is certainly room for improvement on this score. Of the current 56 MLAs in the Manitoba legislature, only 13 (23 per cent) are women. That is a small number, but is far from the lowest among the provinces: data compiled by political scientist Linda Trimble show that after all the last provincial elections, Manitoba had elected the fourth-highest proportion of women. In contrast, British Columbia leads the way on gender diversity among elected officials: 39 per cent of MLAs elected in that province’s recent election were women.

Kinew has his work cut out for him if he wishes to reach gender balance in his own caucus: only three of the NDP’s 12 MLAs are women.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made gender equity look easy when he appointed a cabinet composed of half men and half women after winning the 2015 election. But this was easy because Trudeau, with a few caveats, has the power to appoint virtually whomever he wants to his cabinet.

The same does not apply to Kinew’s promise to achieve gender equity in his caucus. The party leader can exercise some influence over the candidates who run for the party. At the end of the day, however, it is local NDP members in the constituencies, not the leader, who select the candidates who run for the party. Kinew obviously cannot decide which of his candidates will be elected by the voters.

Given this, it’s easy to think Kinew will likely not reach his goal. But one particular aspect of his announcement provides an indication that Kinew’s promise is more than aspirational politicking: his committee will, in addition to advising the leader on gender-equity issues, also take an active role in recruiting and encouraging women and non-binary Manitobans to seek out NDP nominations.

“This group will not just have an advisory role,” Kinew promised. “It will also help to recruit and mentor future women NDP candidates.”

If the goal is greater gender diversity in his caucus, then Kinew is on the right track with his recruitment and mentoring strategy. This informal approach is likely to pay dividends while avoiding some of the pitfalls that necessarily accompany more formal arrangements that limit party members’ ability to choose whomever they want as their candidates.

Abundant academic literature demonstrates that such recruitment and encouragement is crucial to increasing the number of women who decide to run for public office. Research from the United States, for example, shows that support and encouragement effectively convince potential candidates to run for office and both men and women respond favourably.

However, women are much less likely than men to receive such encouragement.

A recent headline summarized these findings well: “Best way to get women to run for office? Ask repeatedly.” By providing encouragement and support to potential female candidates, the NDP diversity committee could play a substantial role in boosting the number of women running for office.

Research into the factors underlying low levels of gender diversity among elected officials can provide further guidance on how this committee can more effectively do its job.

First, there is evidence that, in Canada, women are more likely than men to be nominated in seats they cannot win and less likely to be nominated in seats where their parties will help carry them to victory. This finding that female candidates are more likely than men to run as “sacrificial lambs” suggests the NDP committee will need to focus its recruitment and mentorship activities on traditionally strong NDP seats. If the goal is a diverse caucus rather than more women running and losing, then nominating women in Tory seats such as Steinbach and Morden-Winkler won’t help reach that goal.

The selection of Bernadette Smith as the NDP candidate in the traditionally safe NDP seat of Point Douglas demonstrates how nominating women in such constituencies can lead to greater gender diversity in the caucus.

Second: while female candidates can be directly recruited, they can also be indirectly recruited by ensuring the “gatekeepers” who organize and administer local nomination races are supportive of female candidates. Researchers in Canada found that women were much more likely to be nominated as candidates when the local constituency association president was also a woman. The implication is that women in local gatekeeper roles are more receptive to the candidacies of other women than are men.

The new advisory committee might, therefore, wish to focus its effort both on directly recruiting candidates and also on encouraging women to sign up to sit on the party boards in the ridings, particularly as their presidents.

Royce Koop is an associate professor and head of the department of political studies at the University of Manitoba.