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Quebec Women and Legislative Representation Quebec Women and Legislative Representation Manon Tremblay Quebec Women and Legislative Representation TRANSLATED BY KÄTHE ROTH © UBC Press 2010 Originally published as Québécoises et représentation parlementaire © Les Presses de l’Université Laval 2005. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher, or, in Canada, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), www.accesscopyright.ca. 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in Canada on FSC-certified ancient-forest-free paper (100% post-consumer recycled) that is processed chlorine- and acid-free. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Tremblay, Manon, 1964- Quebec women and legislative representation / written by Manon Tremblay ; translated by Käthe Roth. Originally published in French under title: Québécoises et représentation parlementaire. ISBN 978-0-7748-1768-4 1. Women legislators – Québec (Province). 2. Women in politics – Québec (Province). 3. Representative government and representation – Canada. 4. Legislative bodies – Canada. I. Roth, Käthe II. Title. HQ1236.5.C2T74513 2010 320.082’09714 C2009-903402-6 UBC Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support for our publishing program of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP), and of the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The Canada Council for the Arts kindly provided a translation grant for this English-language edition. Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens Set in Stone by Artegraphica Design Co. Ltd. Copy editor: Deborah Kerr Proofreader: Desne Ahlers Indexer: Heather Ebbs UBC Press The University of British Columbia 2029 West Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2 604-822-5959 / Fax: 604-822-6083 www.ubcpress.ca Contents List of Illustrations / vi Foreword / vii Sylvia Bashevkin Preface and Acknowledgments / x Introduction / 1 1 The Rights to Vote and to Eligibility: Full Access to Citizenship for Quebec Women? / 11 2 Why Does Women’s Representation in the Legislative Spaces of Quebec Not Match Their Demographic Weight? / 61 3 Quebec Women in Legislatures: What Identity and What Ideas? / 97 4 Increasing the Numbers of Women in Quebec’s Legislative Spaces / 144 Conclusion / 193 Appendix 1: The Political Citizenship of Quebec Women and Their Access to Legislative Representation, 1791-2004 / 202 Appendix 2: Quebec Women in the National Assembly, the House of Commons, and the Senate, 1953-2004 / 209 Appendix 3: Components of Ideological Axes / 213 Notes / 216 References / 225 Index / 247 Illustrations Figures 2.1 The process of designating elected representatives / 62 2.2 The process of designating non-elected representatives / 91 4.1 Arguments against and for quotas / 157 4.2 Strategies to increase numbers of Quebec women in legislative spaces / 178 Tables 1.1 Bills introduced to the Quebec Legislative Assembly / 25 2.1 Activities of Quebec women and men in federal political parties / 71 2.2 Quebec female candidates in federal elections / 83 2.3 Women candidates in Quebec provincial elections / 84 2.4 Quebec representatives in the House of Commons and the National Assembly / 87 3.1 Socio-demographic traits of Quebec women / 101 3.2 The political and partisan profile of Quebec women / 106 3.3 Legislative careers of Quebec women / 111 3.4 Liberalism in social matters / 126 3.5 The place of women in legislative assemblies / 130 3.6 Measures to increase the number of women in politics / 134 Foreword Sylvia Bashevkin During the early 1980s, in the course of post-doctoral research on women’s party participation, I was struck by the intriguing variations that distin- guished Quebec from the rest of Canada. Not only did patterns of suffragist activism and dates of provincial enfranchisement differ significantly, but the religious traditions, colonial history, and party organizations that mat- tered most diverged at both the provincial and federal levels. This variation formed the basis for my decision to focus attention on the rest of Canada in the study that became Toeing the Lines, first published in 1985 (Bashevkin 1993). Although introducing Quebec as a comparator in the final chapter of that book proved controversial, given the norms of Canadian political science at the time, I remained optimistic that scholars deeply immersed in the Quebec context would develop far more meaningful analyses than I could provide. Fortunately for all of us, Manon Tremblay has dedicated two decades of her highly productive academic career to charting the parameters of women’s engagement in Quebec politics. She has not just probed the history of women’s electoral and legislative involvement at provincial and federal levels, but also adroitly situated that research in a rich comparative context. Published in 2005 under the title Québécoises et représentation parlementaire, the study translated here as Quebec Women and Legislative Representation fills a crucial gap in the Canadian and international literatures in English on women and politics. Simply stated, this volume presents the welcome voice of a well-informed Quebec scholar who sheds invaluable light on women’s political history and contemporary participation in la belle province. It is difficult to summarize in brief the core contributions of this book. On one level, Tremblay’s study is fascinating because it dispels long-standing assumptions that Quebec women were more politically passive or, to use the jargon of social science research, less agentic than their counterparts else- where. Chapter 1 demonstrates that, as in other parts of Canada, propertied women in Quebec voted long before the franchise was formally extended to viii Foreword them – probably as early as 1809. Tremblay traces subsequent debates over the rights of women in Quebec to vote and to hold public office; these de- liberations were sustained, vigorous, and lively, and her account captures the flavour of argumentation both in favour of and opposed to reform. Chapter 2 tackles the obvious academic and real-world conundrum – namely, why the extension of formal rights during the last century resulted in the arrival of relatively few women in Quebec’s National Assembly, House of Commons, and Senate of Canada seats. Tremblay guides readers through an extensive comparative literature on political party recruitment as well as electoral systems, showing the extent to which selection processes within parties directly shape appointments to the Senate as well as the choices available to voters in parliamentary elections. She examines closely the international literature on left-leaning parties and competitive parties with reference to Quebec, tracing the extent to which progressive (as opposed to conservative) and opposition (as compared with governing) organizations were more open to female participants. In her view, the willingness of par- ties to nominate women in winnable seats under single-member plurality rules, or to place women in promising slots on party lists under proportion- ality rules, is a critical first link in the representation chain. In concise, well-argued terms, Tremblay weaves her claim that party decisions matter a great deal to the presence versus absence of women in public decision-making positions. It is in this section of the book that the author identifies a set of signifi- cant questions for future researchers. First, how do media representations of political women shape not only public perceptions but also the self- presentations of those same politicians? Professor Tremblay poses this chal- lenge as follows: “What empowerment strategies do women in Quebec politics use to handle the media, notably during election campaigns? The current state of knowledge in Quebec offers no answer to this question.” Since 2007, Pauline Marois’ role as Parti québécois leader has provided a critical opportunity to ask how journalists presented the first female leader of a major party in the National Assembly and how that leader projected herself to reporters. Have stories about Marois’ parliamentary interventions as well as her behaviour in election debates and media scrums framed her in ways that parallel the framing of Kim Campbell as federal Progressive Conservative leader – that is, as a masculinized and hence unsettling woman whose willingness to interrupt others or use aggressive body language was often exaggerated in press accounts? Or were Marois’ experiences with the media more similar to those of Audrey McLaughlin, a federal New Democratic Party leader frequently viewed as overly consensus oriented and largely dismissed by pundits as an ineffective politician they could conveniently ignore? Foreword ix Second, what reforms are worth pursuing to encourage the election of more Quebec women, both to the National Assembly and the House of Commons? Will those representatives feel linked to female citizens in the general population, in the sense of believing they hold an obligation to speak for women as a group? Tremblay devotes particular attention to a bill presented in 2004 in the National Assembly, known as the Bill to Replace the Elections Act, which proposed a mixed electoral system with some first- past-the-post and some proportional seats, as well as financial incentives for parties that fielded more women candidates. Her discussion of this legisla- tion acknowledges the challenges facing at-large or list representatives, who do not hold seats in geographically determined districts and are therefore disadvantaged by the land-based assumptions about representation that prevail in North America. Tremblay entreats readers to think about how other Westminster-style systems including New Zealand and Australia have intro- duced changes to single-member plurality arrangements and still maintained political legitimacy.
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