Women are playing a stronger leadership role in Canadian politics, and we’re better for it

by Jim Meek

Across the Atlantic, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has emerged as the only leader who may just be skilled and savvy enough to hold the European Union together. In the antipodes, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has shown the world that yes, West Virginia, you can bring in a carbon tax without inflicting mere anarchy upon the nation.

In Canada, of course, the revolution was late arriving. Until December of 2010 it was all guys, all the time, in the nation’s top political offices. Today Canada’s three newest premiers are all women: B.C.’s Christy Clark; Alberta’s Alison Redford; and Newfoundland and Labrador’s very own Kathy Dunderdale. 

About time this happened. Say what you might about former premiers like “Steady Eddy” Stelmach in Alberta or dandy Danny Williams in Newfoundland and Labrador, no one could accuse them of representing the national interest. Indeed, the nation was so dominated by parochial provincial leaders that the place became Balkanized in a bland Canadian sort of way. 

It’s not as if Albertans scorned those “Eastern bastards,” as they did in 1970s. Nor did the French particularly have it in for the English—or vice versa. Truth is, we were worse than mad at each other. We were indifferent. To an Atlantic Canadian, Saskatchewan was located in the middle of nowhere and British Columbia could be found somewhere over the rainbow.

Today Redford and Dunderdale are taking a very different sort of message to the people, both inside and beyond their own borders. And on the evidence to date, I say more power to the sisterhood. Redford’s not only the first Alberta premier since Peter Lougheed to sound as if she had ever travelled beyond the psychic borders of High River but she’s also the only Western premier in living memory to figure out that the national interest may sometimes align with Alberta’s.

Here’s the underlying problem, for Canada and for Alberta. Every pretty celebrity with a twinkle in his eye and a private jet at their disposal—from Robert Redford to Ethan Hawke—has figured out that this nation is the source of most, if not all, of the world’s dirty energy. This argument is too light to bother weighing, but it does place a burden on the nation as it tries to position itself as a dominant source of new energy supplies on this continent.

Alison Redford would be the first to tell you that Canada’s international image as an energy pariah is patently unfair. In fact, she travelled this fall to Washington to make that point to Congress and the White House. Back home, she has started beating a drum on behalf of the full mix of energy riches that bless the nation. Wind power in Ontario, hydropower in Quebec, offshore petroleum in Atlantic Canada—these should all be seen as vital instruments in an orchestral coast-to-coast symphony.

In short, we have an Alberta premier suggesting that the nation should co-operate to bring additional greener sources of power into its energy mix. This makes perfect sense from a public policy perspective, even as it softens Canada’s image around the world. Dunderdale gets the big picture too, which is why she is moving—oh so carefully—to strike a more open diplomatic relationship with Quebec. This is dangerous turf for any premier in Newfoundland and Labrador, where voters have been conditioned by five decades of anti-Quebec rhetoric with regard to the 1960s-era agreement under which Hydro Quebec buys bargain-basement hydropower from Labrador.

Enough of the whine, already. Dunderdale knows that Quebec and its powerful utility will have to play a crucial role if the real potential of hydro resources in her province is to be realized. Muskrat Falls, the hydro project now being developed with Nova Scotia, is a good start. But the big long-term game is massive exports to North American markets through the Quebec grid.

In short, Dunderdale and Redford have both seen the future, and they are determined to put energy policies in place that make their provinces and their country a winner. It hardly matters whether their foresight is a function of gender or intelligence or fresh perspective or good old-fashioned common sense. The point is that women are starting to play stronger leadership roles in Canadian politics, and we’re all better off for it. 

Jim Meek is a freelance writer and a principal of Public Affairs Atlantic. He can be reached at jmeek@paatlantic.ca.