Monday, February 28, 2011

Christy Clark the 8th female first minister in Canadian history and none have been from the NDP

I have no idea what is going on with the NDP, but the party seems to be a very hard world for women to succeed in.   Christy Clark will shortly be sworn as the 8th female first minister in Canada and the third Liberal one.   There have also been three from the right and two non-partisan ones from the north but not a single New Democrat.

Here in BC the NDP has won three elections and had five premiers, in Saskatchewan 12 elections and  five premiers, Manitoba 7 elections and four premiers, Ontario one election and one premier, the same in Nova Scotia and Yukon three elections and two premiers.

In total there have been 19 CCF/NCP premiers that have won government in 27 elections and not once has this been by a women.

In Saskatchewan the CCF/NDP has been the government or official opposition non-stop since 1934, that is  76 years and never has woman been leader.

In Manitoba the party has been government or official opposition in all but one election since 1969

Here in BC the party has been the official opposition or government straight through since 1937 and there have been two female leaders, but no female premiers.

The CCF/NDP has never been as successful in Ontario, though they will be going into the next election with Andrea Horwath as leader but doing so as a small third party in the province.

Federally we had two female NDP leaders and the leaders in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were women when the party was more or less non-existent.  It is almost as if women can be leaders in the NDP if there is no danger of winning government.

It is not good for the NDP in BC that there is not a single strong female candidate in the running or even touted as a serious leader.   Not only did the Liberals elect a woman as leader, they had several other very serious potential candidates.

The BC NDP has also had troubles in having women win nominations in winnable ridings in the past two elections.

The two provinces most likely to elect NDP governments in the next five years are BC and Saskatchewan, both of which would have male NDP premiers if that were to happen.   I have no idea why there is this problem in the NDP, but it seems to be consistent and long term enough that one could consider it an NDP pattern.

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