Gender and the Electoral Opportunity Structure in the Canadian Provinces

Abstract

We use multivariate analyses to test hypotheses concerning the elec toral opportunity structure for women across a twenty-year period of Canadian provincial elections. We find that party, political context, and social variables affect the likelihood that a woman is elected to a provin cial parliament. While similarities between U.S. state legislative elections and Canadian provincial elections are found, there are distinct differences across the two polities, especially concerning where women first made inroads in winning representation. While women first gained a beach- head in small amateur legislatures in rural states in the United States, in Canada they first won significant numbers of seats in metropolitan areas. We find there continues to be great differences across riding types with women doing much worse in rural ridings than either urban or metro politan ridings. The implications of these differences for redistricting are considered. Canadian courts have generally been sympathetic to plans that insure representation of geographic "communities of interest," even when this has meant overrepresentation of rural areas and under- representation of urban areas. We argue that a consequence of this policy is that Canadian provinces risk underrepresenting women, a nonterritorial "community of interest."