For the first time in the country’s history, all three have women in charge of their national campaigns.
The Conservative national campaign manager, Jenni Byrne, New Democrat national campaign director, Anne McGrath, and Liberal national campaign co-chair, Katie Telford, will be engaged in the battle for votes in roles long dominated by men.
“The reality is that you can’t do poorly among women and win an election in Canada,” said pollster Nik Nanos.
That female vote is already helping drive the left-leaning New Democrats’ surge in national polling numbers four months before the ballots are cast – a rise that spells trouble for both the governing Conservatives and the third-placed Liberals, Nanos said.
“A big part of the New Democrats’ success – at least in the last four to eight weeks – has been in large part their ability to connect and appeal to women voters,” Nanos said.
Each party’s approach to targeting that key demographic highlights just how divergent Byrne, McGrath, and Telford’s strategies – and ideologies – are.
All three also have a lot to prove.
Byrne will hope she can deliver another majority win for a party that’s been in power for nine years and is getting long in the tooth; McGrath, that she can build on the New Democrat’s historic gains in the last general election in 2011; Telford, that the party has been able to rebuild and can compete after a drubbing in that same race.
Nancy Peckford, spokeswoman for Equal Voice Canada, a national group dedicated to electing more women to political office, calls them “drastically different” women with disparate leadership styles.
“That’s why we say we want more women in politics, because no woman can or should represent all women.”
Conservatives have struggled in the past to connect with female voters overall, but have found success among socially conservative women and what Nanos calls “the proverbial soccer mom” with policies like income splitting, which allows couples with children to split their income for tax purposes.
The party has also made child and maternal health in developing countries their signature foreign aid initiative, but it has come under fire for excluding abortion from that program.
In contrast, the New Democrats are appealing to a broader swath of the Canadian population with promises that include a nationwide childcare program – a policy that seems to be drawing the progressive female vote away from the Liberals and solidifying the New Democrat vote in the battleground province of Quebec.
The Liberals, meanwhile, have taken a more highbrow approach to policy that includes democratic renewal planks like reforming Canada’s “first past the post” voting system. But they’ve also promised an updated childcare benefit based on income and that 50% of any eventual Liberal cabinet would be made up of women; they have also committed to blocking any party nomination if the candidate opposes abortion rights.
Each party’s ability to recruit female candidates could also make a difference.
A strong female competitor tends to get a boost from voters of her own gender (a boost that doesn’t materialize if the candidate underwhelms, Nanos notes).
While 2011 was a high-water mark for women being elected to Canada’s parliament – with women making up 25% of all MPs – Peckford is concerned those numbers will fall short this time around.
Currently about 30% of all nominated candidates are women, slightly below 2011 numbers – though none of the parties have filled vacancies in all 338 ridings. So far, the New Democrats are in the lead with 40% of their candidates being women. The Liberals are at 33%, and the Conservatives are hovering just below 20%.
(As of June, the Inter-Parliamentary Union ranked Canada 46th on a global list of national female political representation. The UK was 36th, the US 71st. Afghanistan ranked 39th).
Women have long served as campaign muscle in Canada, helping beef up legions of political volunteers. The first woman elected to the Canadian House of Commons was Agnes Campbell MacPhail, in 1921. But before Byrne’s first time leading the Conservative campaign in 2011, only one other female had been at the helm of a national campaign in Canada: Jodi White, in 1997.
Peckford concedes most Canadians probably won’t notice that for the first time in their history, the political operatives pulling the strings in this campaign are all women.
But she says it’s still significant.
Now, for the next generation of women in politics, “it’s not what they have to prove anymore, but what they have to offer.”
Original Article
Source: theguardian.com/
Author: Jessica Murphy
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