Councillor-elect Catherine McKenney is ready to be sworn in on Dec. 1 as Diane Holmes’s successor in Somerset Ward, but she is the only newly elected woman on a city council that lost Holmes and two other women — defeated Katherine Hobbs in KitchissippiWard and retired Maria McRae in River Ward.
That leaves the city council with a decrease from six to four female representatives out of 23 in total — and a growing gender gap is raising questions about whether more needs to be done to encourage women to run for public office.
McKenney says that the number of women on city council has not been so low since the 1980s and that this has repercussions.
“We’re still struggling with the same things we were struggling with back in the early 80s and I believe it’s because we have not had that leadership at the table. We need more women at the table,” says McKenney.
University of Ottawa professor Caroline Andrew says while the lack of representation is a problem, it’s nothing new for Ottawa.
“I don’t think there will be a difference because there’s never been anything like 50 per cent representation,” says Andrew, who studies municipal government. “It’s not like they had a majority before and now they don’t.”
More needs to be done to encourage women to run for city council if the 19-4 gender gap is ever going to be bridged, says Mary Anne Carter, vice-chair of the National Capital Region branch of Equal Voice, a national organization that promotes female involvement in politics.
“Given that there were over 100 candidates running in the city and only 20 of them were women, it comes as no surprise that there were very few women in city council,” says Carter.
The gender gap may not be able to be tackled until the next election then, says McKenney, with the main issue stemming from the lack of women running.
“We’re just not encouraging and providing the necessary encouragement for women to run in municipal politics and it’s a problem,” says McKenney.
Carter says there needs to be more outreach to get women to run in municipal politics.
“Equal voice obviously does a lot of advocacy,” says Carter. “I think the media has a role to play in this in terms of how they frame women.”
Mayor Jim Watson and council also need to get involved for the gender gap to change, says Carter.
“I think the mayor has a role to play in taking a leadership role and recognizing that we need more women in city council, encouraging more women to run,” says Carter.
Even though city council is not close to equal representation, women outnumber men in Ottawa’s overall population, according to the 2011 census, with more than 450,000 women and just under 430,000 men.
People have probably not noticed the growing gender gap on council because there have been a few key women in Ottawa municipal politics – including Charlotte Whitton.
Increasing the number of women on city council is necessary for younger women throughout the city, insists McKenney.
“The less women we have in public office, the less role models there are for women to follow in those footsteps, as it is for any group.”