Kathleen Wynne, Ontario’s first feminine premier, remembers assembly a businessman who shook arms with the male staffer standing subsequent to her and addressed him as “premier.”
It’s exhausting to shake the notion among the many public of what a premier appears like, Wynne, premier between 2013 and 2018, mentioned in a current interview.
“A five-foot-four-woman is just not who individuals consider as a frontrunner.”
Wynne is one in all 4 former or present feminine premiers who spoke to The Canadian Press following final week’s swearing in ceremony of Christine Fréchette, Quebec’s thirty third premier and the second girl within the position after the Parti Québécois’s Pauline Marois between 2012-14.
All 4 mentioned Fréchette has been handed the reins of a celebration in disaster and faces a “glass cliff”: a scenario when a girl is put in a management position when danger of failure is excessive. Nevertheless, neither Wynne, Marois, former B.C. premier Christy Clark nor New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt are prepared to write down Fréchette off simply but
“I definitely wouldn’t underestimate Christine Fréchette. She’s a particularly decided and good girl,” Holt, who led her Liberals to a majority in 2024, changing into New Brunswick’s first feminine premier, mentioned over the cellphone.
Of greater than 340 Canadian prime ministers and premiers since Confederation, 17 have been girls. A number of — corresponding to Wynne, Marois and Clark— have been named chief at a tough time for his or her events,however all three led them to victory.
It stays to be seen whether or not Fréchette will do the identical. She has lower than six months to make her mark earlier than October’s common election, and ballot aggregator Qc125 predicts her occasion — Coalition Avenir Québec — is on monitor to be diminished to zero seats.
Clark, B.C.’s second feminine premier, took over as Liberal chief from Gordon Campbell in 2011. His approval score had dropped to 9 per cent and the occasion was 22 factors behind within the polls, however she wound up successful a shock majority within the 2013 common election.
“Once you’re actually low within the polls, individuals are searching for a giant, apparent change. And so I believe girls match that invoice as a result of it’s so unusual nonetheless to elect girls to be chief of your occasion,” Clark mentioned in a current interview.
Wynne inherited Ontario’s high job in 2013 from Dalton McGuinty, whose Liberals have been unpopular after a slew of scandals. She says she remembers seeing a newspaper comedian depicting her driving a beat-up automobile the day after she was sworn in.
“Generally a celebration will say, ‘Effectively we’ve tried the whole lot else, let’s attempt a lady,’ you recognize? And it could both work or not,” mentioned Wynne, who led the Liberals to a majority victory in 2014. She misplaced the next election to Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives.
Clark, in the meantime, is the one feminine premier elected to a second time period in workplace, however her occasion was downgraded to a minority authorities in Might 2017. She shortly misplaced a confidence vote and resigned in June of that yr.
Whereas Clark says some losses will be chalked as much as poor campaigning, she provides individuals bitter on girls in management roles faster than males. Politics and press galleries are typically “boy’s golf equipment,” she says, that decide girls extra harshly.
“We nonetheless reside in a sexist society,” she mentioned.
Kate Graham, a political-science professor at Huron College School, says it’s too quickly to say whether or not Fréchette shall be pushed off the glass cliff. In her podcast sequence, “No Second Likelihood,” Graham dissects the rise and fall of girls in Canada’s most senior political roles.
With Fréchette, she says comparisons to each Kim Campbell and Wynne come to thoughts.
Campbell, Canada’s solely feminine prime minister, gained the 1993 Progressive Conservative management race following Brian Mulroney’s retirement. She was in workplace for 132 days earlier than the occasion misplaced to Jean Chrétien’s Liberals in what is taken into account the worst defeat for a federal governing occasion.
“These are two potential situations (for Fréchette),” says Graham. “I believe that the distinction between these paths is that if the incumbent will present voters that one thing is completely different (throughout the occasion).”
New Brunswick’s Holt is optimistic about the way forward for girls in politics, although she sees the glass cliff sample repeating with Fréchette. “The bar is larger and infrequently girls are put into these type of unwinnable conditions,” she mentioned.
Holt — who began off as opposition chief — says she confronted her personal set of challenges. She says the gender wage hole nonetheless exists, leaving girls with much less disposable revenue than males to help political candidates. She additionally says she skilled on-line harassment and threats.
Marois was named PQ chief after the storied occasion misplaced official Opposition standing to the now-defunct Motion démocratique in 2007. However she rallied the embattled occasion and led the PQ to a minority authorities, defeating the Liberals. On election night time 2012, a gunman compelled his approach into the Montreal venue the place she was delivering her victory speech. He killed a lighting technician and injured one other particular person.
Marois known as an election in 2014 and misplaced to the Liberals. Throughout her time in workplace, she remembers consistently preventing in opposition to sexist stereotypes. She recollects holding a information convention after one in all her morning strolls — she walks about 7,000 steps per day — and being advised by journalists that she “regarded drained.”
“I assumed to myself, ‘No, this may’t be taking place; we’re not going to undergo this once more,’” she mentioned in an interview. She invited the reporters to affix her for a stroll up Montreal’s Mount Royal at 6 a.m. the following day, and plenty of “stayed on the marketing campaign bus.”
Marois mentioned she felt “deep satisfaction” seeing Fréchette change into premier, saying it’s “a win for all girls.” When Marois first joined the Quebec legislature in 1981, she says about 24 per cent of elected officers have been girls in comparison with 46 per cent immediately.
“It’s fantastic, all of the boundaries we’ve damaged down,” mentioned Marois. “However there’s nonetheless work to do.”