Mount A student studying women in politics

In spite of the advances made by women in Canadian society, they are still under-represented in elected positions.

When Mount Allison University student Fraser Harland from Camrose, Alta. heard about a local municipal council that was all women, he realized this was a perfect opportunity to do a study on women and representation at the local level. He was interested in whether women, once elected, represent the interests of women, what barriers exist to prevent women from representing these interests, and whether this example supports current political theories on women in politics.

Harland, who is a political science honours student, received a Universitas summer undergraduate research award to support his research this summer. He recently presented his findings at the Atlantic Provinces Political Science Association's annual meeting. Harland also received first prize for his research at Mount Allison's summer undergraduate research fair in September.

At the local level in Canada, women make up 23 per cent of the elected officials, about the same as women at the federal and provincial levels. This places Canada at 48th in the world for the percentage of women in elected office.

But the village of Port Elgin is a different story. In this small, rural municipality, their five-person council is entirely composed of women - the only such case in the province.

There is fierce debate in political science as to whether having a significant number of women in political office will have an effect on issues important to women.

"Some scholars argue women will represent women's interests more often than men would, although they acknowledge the importance of political parties in helping women to bring these issues to the table," says Harland. "Others argue that this critical mass of women will have little effect on how women's interests are represented."

The Port Elgin village council certainly forms a critical mass of women. What Harland found was that, at the municipal level, the barriers that prevent the advancement of women's interests are markedly different from those found at the federal and provincial levels.

Tamara Small, political science professor and Harland's advisor on this project says, "This study is important because academics have made these claims about women and politics at other levels of government but it needed to be investigated at the municipal level."

"Ultimately the representatives of the Port Elgin village council do not substantively represent women but instead identify strongly as 'community trustees'," says Harland. "The women have a strong commitment to civic ideals and to addressing issues of community concern."

Harland argues that there are a number of reasons for this, an important one being the scope of what one is responsible for in small municipal governments. The issues also tend to be those that are gender neutral.

For example, if there is a problem with municipal sewage infrastructure, this obviously will take priority and time from other issues.

Harland says simply having more of an under-represented group will not make a difference unless the group is able or willing to act for their interests.

"This shows that institutional reform, or requiring a certain number of women be elected, will not necessarily lead to the substantive representation of women," argues Harland. "But numeric representation and institutional reform are clearly significant for the democratic ideal of inclusiveness. If we hope for the interests of traditionally marginalized groups to be properly represented, then we have to find out why elected officials focus on some issues and not others."