Maude Barlow is probably the most successful politician in Canada. Her members adore her. No one is even close to challenging her leadership. She is internationally recognized as a leader of the anti-globalization movement. Her organization, the Council of Canadians, has grown from 15,000 to 100,000 under her leadership. She has put trade issues on the public policy agenda in such an effective way that she no doubt gives business leaders nightmares.

Judy Darcy is also extraordinarily successful. She is the president of Canada’s largest union. With half a million members, the Canadian Union of Public Employees is also one of our most militant unions. Darcy’s health-care workers along with nurses are leading the battle to save Medicare. Along with Barlow, Darcy is on the frontlines of the emerging battle to keep precious water resources in the public domain. Both women are inspiring speakers, intelligent strategists, brilliant with a quotable quote and warm and likeable people. Either one would be a huge catch for a political party but neither is interested.

“Progressive women can do more outside of politics,” Barlow bluntly states. “There is a difference between power and influence. Most women and progressive men I know are more interested in influence. I am far more effective outside the partisan political system than I could be inside,” she adds.

There are a lot of reasons why many of our most talented women leaders choose to work outside of electoral politics. Says Judy Darcy, “both the labour movement and the social movements are closer to people and more democratic. We’re dealing with the every-day problems of people in their communities. We don’t have to worry about getting re-elected, so we can concentrate on the real issues and not worry about spin.”

Barlow says one of her advantages is that she doesn’t need to be taken seriously by the media. “I expect the media to go after me and, frankly, I don’t care. It is like water off a duck’s back as long as they cover our issues.”

Alexa McDonough, on the other hand, has to care deeply about how she is treated in the media, and they basically ignore her. In many ways, she can also be seen as a skilled and successful leader. After a disastrous election result, she has thus far managed to keep her party fairly united in the search for renewal. Compare that to some male leaders who are working to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory, like Stockwell Day. In our system though, the New Democratic leader’s inability to achieve media visibility dooms her to irrelevance.

A new group says a reformed electoral system will increase women’s participation in politics. “Equal voice” is a cross-partisan group of women, many of whom were involved in an earlier effort, called the Committee of ’94, which was formed in 1984 and set a goal of 50 per cent women in Parliament by the year 1994. Today, seven years after their deadline, we are barely at 20 per cent. Now, these same women are taking another stab at it, suggesting that implementing proportional representation (PR) will up the number of women in Parliament. It is true that, in most countries with PR, the percentage of women is higher.

However, in countries where women have succeeded in breaking into traditional parties in large numbers, like Norway and Sweden, they have done so through quotas. These gains were made when the women’s movement was at its height. Today, it is difficult to even get the issue of women’s representation onto the political agenda, and most women I know outside of traditional political circles aren’t even interested.

Another solution is to change party politics. An initiative I am involved in is trying to do just that. It’s called the New Politics Initiative (NPI), and it’s bringing some of the spirit and energy of social-movement politics into the electoral arena. A focus of the NPI is to develop forms of participatory democracy where citizens are directly involved in political decision-making. Bringing politics closer to the real lives of people and encouraging more citizen participation would, I think, both make politics more attractive to women and change the kind of leadership to one that would be more effective.

Obviously, transforming the political system will take a long time, but as more people become fed up with the preening and posturing of traditional electoral politics, a more female-friendly political system may find a lot of support.

Judy Rebick

Judy Rebick

Judy Rebick is one of Canada’s best-known feminists. She was the founding publisher of rabble.ca , wrote our advice column auntie.com and was co-host of one of our first podcasts called Reel Women....