B.C. Today – Daily Report December 5, 2018

Quotation of the day

“The issues around why women choose not to run are very complex. From my perspective, it is not as simple as the electoral model we choose.”

B.C. Liberal finance co-critic and five-term MLA says proportional representation ​ ​ will not be a panacea for gender parity in B.C.’s legislature.

Today in B.C.

On the schedule The House is adjourned for the winter break. MLAs are scheduled to return to the House on February 12, 2019 for the delivery of the government’s throne speech.

Today’s events

December 5 at 11 a.m. – ​

Premier will be joined by Environment and Climate Change Strategy Minister ​ ​ , Energy Minister Michelle Mungall and Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver ​ ​ ​ ​ to announce the province's climate and low-carbon economy plan at the Vancouver Public Library.

December 5 at 12:30 p.m. – Victoria ​

Auditor General Carol Bellringer will release her office’s latest report entitled “Independent ​ ​ Audit of Capital Asset Management in B.C. Hydro” and hold a news conference.

December 5 at 5 p.m. – Invermere ​

The Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources will host an information session to update Invermere area residents on the status of Columbia River Treaty negotiations at the ​ ​ Columbia Valley Chamber of Commerce. There will also be “opportunity for discussion of community interests” related to the treaty.

Topics of conversation

● Liberal Party Leader is calling for a judicial review into the impact ​ ​ ​ ​ and extent of money laundering in B.C.’s casinos and real estate market. “I am gravely ​ concerned that we need some disclosure from this government as to what on earth is going on,” Wilkinson told CKNW. ​ ​ ○ Premier John Horgan has said calls for a public inquiry into the issue are ​ ​ premature and would be costly and potentially fruitless. ○ Attorney General will receive anti-money laundering czar Peter ​ ​ ​ German’s report on money laundering in the province’s housing market in March. ​ The province’s Expert Panel on Money Laundering in Real Estate is due to ​ deliver its report to Finance Minister that same month. ​ ​

● B.C. has the second highest job vacancy rate in the country at 3.7 per cent, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business’ quarterly Help Wanted report. That ​ ​ works out to more than 67,000 empty jobs waiting for workers. Only Quebec has more job vacancies than B.C. at 4.1 per cent; Ontario has the third highest at 3.3 per cent. ○ B.C.’s job vacancy rate has held steady since last quarter while Ontario and Quebec saw slight increases in vacant job numbers (0.1 per cent). ○ “Businesses will likely respond to these trends by investing more in capital than labour in 2019, along with redistributing wages to key roles in the company,” CFIB chief economist and CEO Ted Mallett said in a statement. ​ ​

● British Columbians are invited to comment on proposed changes to the province’s ​ ​ freshwater fishing regulations, which include tweaks to “fishing methods, gear, bait, ​ quotas, boundaries and fishery opening and closing dates,” according to a release from the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations. The goal of the changes is to keep recreational fishing in the province sustainable. ○ Comments will be accepted until January 11, 2019. The finalized regulations are scheduled to be posted online in mid-March and take effect in April 2019.

● Six people were arrested on the Johnson Street Bridge in Victoria yesterday evening ​ ​ following a sit-in protest against government inaction on climate change. Around 100 people marched from Centennial Square onto the bridge. ○ According to the Facebook group created for the event, the original plan was to occupy the bridge for 12 minutes — one minute for each year the world has left to address climate change, according to the recent report from the United ​ ​ Nations’ International Panel on Climate Change.

● The B.C. Wildfire Service is accepting applications for wildland firefighting positions for ​ ​ the 2019 wildfire season. The service is seeking to fill between 150 and 200 positions provincewide. ○ New wildfire fighting recruits typically work from May until September and have recall rights after serving for one season, entitling them to four to eight months of work the following season.

News briefs - Governmental

Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation The governments of Canada and B.C. and the Ktunaxa Nation have signed the Ktunaxa Nation ​ Rights Recognition and Core Treaty MOU, which will “significantly advance reconciliation and ​ treaty negotiations,” according to a government news release.

The MOU commits the three parties to develop an Indigenous rights recognition approach that “explicitly recognizes that Aboriginal rights are inherent and cannot be extinguished or surrendered” as treaty negotiations continue.

“This agreement ensures the ongoing relationship between the Ktunaxa and provincial and federal governments will be based on mutual respect and understanding and is a key step on the path towards reconciliation," Ktunaxa Nation Council chair Kathryn Teneese said in a ​ ​ statement.

The document also aims to establish the Ktunaxa Nation Council as the legal government and rights-holder of the Ktunaxa Nation and create “a collaborative and predictable ongoing government-to-government relationship” between the First Nation and the federal and provincial governments.

“Self-government, land ownership and stewardship, and law-making authority” will be core aspects of the final treaty while administrative and policy issues will be addressed in supplemental agreements that are more easily amended than the treaty document.

Three B.C. First Nations have implemented treaties negotiated with the provincial and federal governments; sixty-five others, including the Ktunaxa, are in the process of doing so.

Funding announcements

● A new cyclist and pedestrian overpass will soon be built over Stewardson Way, just east of the Queensborough Bridge. Construction is set to start in January and is expected to be complete by summer 2019. The overpass will allow pedestrians and cyclists to safely ​ cross 6th Avenue and Stewardson Way, providing better access to the Millennium/Expo SkyTrain station. ○ The $5.1 million project will be cost-shared by B.C.’s Ministry of Transportation ​ and Infrastructure, which will cover 33 per cent of construction costs, and ​ Ottawa’s Public Transit Infrastructure Fund, which will contribute 33 per cent. ​ ​ ○ TransLink will cover the remaining 17 per cent.

Women and proportional representation

British Columbia is currently holding its third referendum on electoral reform in the less than 15 years. B.C. Today is conducting a deep dive into how a PR system could affect the number of women elected to the B.C. legislature and what that might mean for politics in the province.

“Too many times, we see the same types of people getting elected time and again — white men, like Mr. Wilkinson and I.”

Premier John Horgan made this unexpected remark during last month’s televised debate ​ ​ opposite Liberal Party Leader Andrew Wilkinson. The premier was arguing that switching to a ​ ​ proportional representation (PR) system would bring “more inclusion” to B.C. politics than the province currently sees under first-past-the-post (FPTP) — and that it is white men that would be weeded out.

Throughout the current B.C. referendum campaign, advocates have occasionally pointed to how the PR systems in other jurisdictions have correlated with an increase in female parliamentarians.

“Statistically, when you look at countries with the highest percentage of women elected, they are proportional representation countries,” said , House Leader for the B.C. Green ​ ​ Party, which supports making the switch to PR.

Female politicians have been elected in greater numbers worldwide in recent decades, but research suggests switching to a PR system boosts the number of women in office by between one and 10 per cent. ​

Furstenau holds New Zealand up as an example of PR’s ability to make legislatures more representative of voters.

When New Zealand switched from FPTP to PR in 1996, fewer than 30 per cent of its MPs were women. In 2017, 38 per cent of elected MPs were women.

“What eventually happened is the legislature started to look more like [the population of] New Zealand,” she told B.C. Today. “Right now, our legislature does not look like B.C.” ​ ​

PR poster child Sweden has the highest number of women in national office at 45 per cent — a full 25 per cent higher than Canada where just one-quarter of MPs in the House of Commons are women.

Defining precisely why PR systems tend to result in more diverse governments than FPTP is an imprecise science — and success varies depending on cultural factors and the characteristics of ​ various PR systems — But the broad strokes are in the name. PR systems attempt to produce ​ ​ ​ legislatures that more proportionally represent the diverse priorities of voters than the FPTP.

Representation matters

Compared to the rest of the country, B.C. scores high when it comes to the number of women in provincial office. Currently, 38 per cent of MLAs are women, as are about half of B.C. cabinet ministers, both opposition house leaders — Furstenau and Liberal Party House Leader Mary ​ Polak — and Deputy Premier Carole James. ​ ​ ​

This level of representation is a recent phenomenon — until the 1980s, women made up less than 11 per cent of the B.C. Legislature. Since then, the province has had two female premiers and three female Speakers.

In 2011, Liberal MLA Shirley Bond became the first woman in B.C. to serve as attorney ​ ​ general. She currently serves as her party’s finance co-critic.

“It certainly is not because there were not competent women who could do that job,” Bond said of her barrier-busting appointment.

Bond counters the idea that it takes a PR system to increase female representation, noting that during her 17 years at the legislature, she has seen a “significant increase” in the number of women serving alongside her — all under FPTP.

Bond finds the assertion that PR systems automatically lead to more women in politics “too simplistic.”

“The issues around why women choose not to run are very complex,” Bond told B.C. Today. ​ ​ “From my perspective, it is not as simple as the electoral model we choose. I think that all of us need to work harder to have more diversity in the legislature.”

In her years of talking to “really incredible women” about the possibility of running for provincial office, Bond said, “Typically the first response you get is, ‘No, not me. Why would I do that?’”

“The comment I get most often is, ‘I could never do your job,’” deputy premier and finance minister Carole James said in an interview. ​ ​

While they come from opposing parties, both James and Bond see the power of women in elected office.

“You can’t be it if you can’t see it. We have to show young women that there are meaningful roles [for them],” Bond said. “We need to have women in significant positions in governments — I am a strong supporter of that.”

“We are not a young legislature,” James said “We do not represent the faces of people in communities, and I think that has a lot to do with the system.”

Bond disagrees. Instead of changing the electoral system, she said parties need to be more proactive about attracting and promoting diverse candidates — something one party in B.C. has already done.

The quota question

In 2017, the B.C. NDP became the first party in the province with more women than men on its candidate slate. When an incumbent NDP MLA steps down, the party’s equity policy mandates that the replacement candidate be a woman, a member of a visible minority, a disabled person ​ or a member of the LGBTQ community.

(For example, when NDP MLA Leonard Krog resigned after winning the mayorship of ​ ​ in October, the NDP opted to run NDP MP to replace him.) ​ ​

A glance between the government and opposition benches in B.C.’s Legislative Chamber reveals the NDP’s policy has borne fruit: about one-third of opposition MLAs are women, whereas women account for more than 45 per cent of seats on the government side. The NDP benches are noticeably younger and less white as well.

Bond remains skeptical of any policy that sets anything more than merit-based requirements for political candidates. “I believe in the best person for the job,” she said.

Liberal MLA is one of B.C.’s youngest MLAs and one of three who use a ​ ​ wheelchair. She too is skeptical that switching to PR would bring an “appropriate amount” of diverse candidates to provincial politics.

“If we are going to try and attract more women, there are more ways to do it,” she told B.C. ​ Today. “You have to work from your organizational standpoint to ensure that your leadership ​ brings that up from the grassroots to engage youth, people with disabilities and women to have their voice.”

Prior to being elected in 2013, Stilwell, who is a Paralympic athlete, said she had “never dreamed of politics.”

“I never thought it was something that I would be good at or would want to do, but when it was explained to me — you’re an advocate, you are using your voice and you already stand up for people with disabilities and children with special needs and clean sport and that is what an MLA is,” she said. “It kind of dawned on me … it is what I do and I have those passions for those issues.”

“We need to see people who look like us”

Women on both sides of the PR debate agree that having more women in politics will make it easier to get more women into politics.

“The more women that we have standing for office, standing in winnable seats — not just unwinnable seats — and being really well-established people in the system and in government, then it is much more likely we will be able to encourage other women to run as well,” said Mitzi ​ Dean, B.C.’s first parliamentary secretary for gender equity. ​

A common criticism of political parties nationwide is that they are willing to run lots of female candidates but often nominate them in ridings they have little chance of winning.

B.C. is no exception: In 2017, 111 women ran for a seat the province — 34 of them were elected. Just over half of men who ran for the NDP were elected while 43 per cent of NDP women won their ridings, according to analysis by University of Victoria political science professor . The difference was even larger for Liberal candidates: 57 per cent of ​ ​ ​ men running under the Liberal banner won their seat compared to 39 per cent of women.

“I don’t think that just electing more women is enough.” said Maria Dobrinskaya, director of ​ ​ B.C.’s Broadbent Institute and spokesperson for Vote PR B.C., the official proponent campaign for electoral reform.

There is a difference, Dobrinskaya said, between descriptive representation, where elected officials come from under-represented groups, and substantive representation, where issues important to under-represented groups are well-represented. She points to former premier as an example. ​

While Clark is undeniably a trailblazer and a role model for many women in the political sphere, she was a polarizing figure as premier.

“She did not necessarily represent the values or the policies that are … most important for getting women into office,” Dobrinskaya told B.C. Today. “That substantive piece was missing.” ​ ​

Women are not a homogenous group, as Dean pointed out.

“Women are diverse as well — we are half the population,” she said. “We have a lot of different experiences and a lot of different skill sets. We get into politics with different motivation.”

The second part in B.C. Today’s mini-series on Women and PR will focus on partisanship and policy implementation. It will be published Friday.