Category: Research

Canada can achieve gender parity in politics: here’s how

How to advance equal representation for women in Parliament

Canada is a leader in supporting women’s equality around the world, but at home we are falling behind when it comes to electing women.

Why gender parity matters

Research conducted by international expert Dr. Jennifer Piscopo, a widely cited professor of gender and politics at Royal Holloway, University of London, examined the approaches other countries adopted to achieve or approach gender parity. Her findings are reflected below:

Pipeline theory for gender parity debunked

The pipeline theory that gender parity in politics would occur once women caught up to men in education and experience in politics-adjacent fields like law and business is simply not true:

Systemic approaches have proven more effective

The number of women in legislative bodies only meaningfully increases when gender parity rules are adopted that apply to all political parties.

Most countries electing more than 40 per cent women use a statutory gender quota that applies to the number of women candidates parties run.

An analysis of the five democracies with national electoral systems most comparable to Canada’s (single-member districts with first-past-the-post rules) demonstrated that the criteria and enforcement mechanisms employed make a measurable difference to their impact. 

The research finds that approaches taken in Nepal, South Korea and Uzbekistan rely on weak requirements and have been largely ineffective; France has achieved mixed results. However, Mexico, where women now make up 50.2% of federal representatives, has a very effective statutory candidate gender quota with features that Canada could effectively adapt as outlined below.

An effective Canadian-designed system would:

✔ Mandate gender parity among parties’ candidates across all ridings;
✔ Use obligatory language (“parties must”) rather than (“parties should”);
✔ Require parties to practice gender parity across competitive ridings, including both winning and swing ridings
✔ Impose meaningful enforcement mechanisms such that parties failing to follow the rules would have an opportunity to correct their candidate registries, but if they do not do so within a stipulated window, they would be prevented from fielding candidates in the election.

Canada needs to act on these insights and implement systemic change measures in line with democracies around the world to:

✔ Demonstrate its genuine commitment to advancing gender equality;
✔ Ensure that policy-decision making benefits from women’s insights; and
✔ Increase public trust in government.

Read Jennifer Piscopo’s full report here

Informed Perspectives is a registered charity working to bridge the gender gap in Canadian public discourse. Conversations happening in the news media and political spheres have the power to influence everything else, and the chronic under-representation of women’s voices hampers our ability to advance in every arena.

  • Monitor media representation and drive accountability through our Gender Gap Tracker
  • Elevate women’s voices through workshops that transform knowledge into influence
  • Connect 1,500 journalists with diverse qualified sources through our expert database
  • Commission research into equality measures that can inform systemic change solutions.

The Evidence is Clear: Women’s Equality is Critical

FACT: Women are more vulnerable than men to a tough economy, vitriolic political discourse and climate change.

Tough economy:
This research explores key data and facts on the economic empowerment of women. From income disparities and workforce trends to entrepreneurship and access to financial resources, these statistics spotlight the critical role of economic empowerment in advancing gender equality and driving sustainable development.
Source Link

Vitriolic political discourse:
Politicians frequently face toxic behaviors. The authors argue that these behaviors impose a double burden on women, who may not only face higher exposure to toxicity, but experience attacks that they and others understand to be motivated by prejudice and designed to push them out of office.
Source Link

Climate change:
Studies have shown that women disproportionately suffer the impacts of disasters, severe weather events, and climate change because of cultural norms and the inequitable distribution of roles, resources and power, especially in developing countries.
Source Link

FACT: Increasing women’s political representation in Canada could deliver billions of dollars to our economy. 
Source Link

FACT: Although more than 100 countries around the world require political parties to run a minimum number of women in winnable ridings, Canada isn’t among them. 
Source Link

FACT: People are more likely to trust gender-balanced governments even when parity is achieved through quotas.
Source Link

Donate this Giving Tuesday to make Canada fairer and more equitable.

Canadians Want Action on Gender Parity in Politics

New research shows Canadians overwhelmingly support equal representation in politics, but give governments and political parties failing grades on progress so far.

Canadians have long seen gender equality as a defining value of our democracy. But recent polling conducted by Abacus Data for Informed Perspectives reveals a sharp disconnect between Canadians’ commitment to parity and the lack of progress in political representation.


Canadians Expect More
Nearly all Canadians want to see more being done to achieve gender parity in politics. Many are surprised, even disappointed, to learn that Canada ranks just 70th globally in women’s representation—a decline from 59th a few years ago. Four in ten Canadians say they are surprised by Canada’s low global standing, and nearly as many say they are disappointed that more progress hasn’t been made.

The data also show a broader frustration: 30% of Canadians describe Canadian society as inequitable – an opinion ten points higher among women than men.

A Core Canadian Value
Gender parity is not a fringe concern. It is a core belief for Canadians across political affiliations and demographics. Eighty-six percent say equal representation of men and women in politics is important at all levels of government, a finding consistent since 2022. Importantly, support cuts across lines of gender and party preference.


Canadians also believe that parity brings concrete benefits:

  • 84% say it leads to policies that better reflect the realities and needs of the broader population.
  • 81% say it increases respect in political dialogue.
  • 78% say it boosts government productivity.
  • 78% say it fosters more cross-partisan collaboration.

For most Canadians, parity is about building a democracy that works better for everyone.

Canadians want Institutional Involvement
Yet expectations remain clear: around seven in ten Canadians, and nearly eight in ten when it comes to the federal government, want each of these institutions and groups to play a big role in ensuring women have an equal voice in politics.


Pathways Forward
Canadians strongly support learning from international examples and adopting proven strategies here at home. Enforcing greater civility and respect in debates (73%) and changing conditions of work for elected officials (69%) top the list of reforms Canadians see as both effective and necessary.


Support is also growing for more ambitious measures. A majority now favour requiring parties to nominate a minimum number of women candidates (58%, up four points since last measured) and to run women in winnable ridings (56%, up four points). There is also majority support for legislatures, including the House of Commons, to ensure a minimum number of women are elected representatives.

Across the board, more than seven in ten Canadians believe these measures would help Canada achieve parity-including men and women, and supporters of all major federal parties.


Upshot
Canadians are clear: gender parity is fundamental to the health of our democracy. They believe it strengthens our economy, improves decision-making, and reflects the values of equality we aspire to as a country. But they are equally clear that governments and political parties are not doing enough.

With Canada sliding in international rankings, the choice is stark: act now with proven strategies to
ensure women are equal partners in shaping our future, or risk further erosion of Canada’s democratic credibility.

Methodology
The survey was conducted with 2,000 adult Canadians over the age of 18 from July 31 to August 5, 2025. A random sample of panelists were invited to complete the survey from a set of partner panels based on the Lucid exchange platform. These partners are typically double opt-in survey panels, blended to manage out potential skews in the data from a single source.

The margin of error for a comparable probability-based random sample of the same size is +/- 2.19%, 19 times out of 20.

The data were weighted according to census data to ensure that the sample matched Canada’s population according to age, gender, educational attainment, and region. Totals may not add up to 100 due to rounding.

Counting Ourselves In: Understanding why women decide to engage with the media (2018)

with the University of Waterloo and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

This research explores what motivates women with professional and subject matter expertise to “count themselves in” by sharing their informed opinions and analysis with the broader public through the news media. Funded through the Social Science and Humanities Research Council, the study was a collaboration between Dr. Nancy Worth and the non-profit project, Informed Opinions, the mandate of which is to amplify women’s voices to bridge the gender gap in Canadian public discourse.

We sought insights from women who have chosen to be listed in Informed Opinions’ database of expert women regarding their incentives for engaging with media, despite the barriers that continue to prevent many others from doing so. At the time of the study, the database featured profiles of 550 women, 193 (35%) of whom completed the online survey. Thirty-four of the surveyed women then agreed to participate in in-depth follow-up interviews.

The surveys and conversations reflected a variety of incentives, both personal and professional. Many women shared their desire to use media exposure to support career and leadership ambitions through enhanced visibility and reputation. Many also cited their belief in the importance of expressing solidarity with other expert women who were braving the risks, adding value to public conversations through their specialized knowledge, and serving as a role model for girls and younger women.

Read the report here

Using Big Data Analytics to Incentivize Behaviour Change in How Canadian Journalists Represent Women: Impact & Accountability Report (2019) with Simon Fraser University

This report describes the impetus for, and preliminary impact of, the Gender Gap Tracker, an analytics tool that seeks to measure, in real time, the gender of those quoted and featured in Canada’s most influential news media.

The focus of some news stories dictates who must be quoted – the government minister or CEO making the announcement, the person accused of or victimized by a crime. At the same time, journalists often have discretion over the people they ask to provide context or analysis. Yet those people remain overwhelmingly male and white, despite the fact that women’s post-secondary enrolment has surpassed men’s for more than 20 years, and members of visible minority groups are far more likely to have completed a university degree.

The narrow representation of sources is especially troubling considering the role journalism plays in a democracy and the fact that those whose voices are least reflected are often the most affected by the decisions and circumstances being covered in the news.

The Gender Gap Tracker – made possible through significant in-kind research provided by Simon Fraser University, and through contract with Women and Gender Equality Canada – seeks to influence journalism practice to stimulate greater inclusion of women’s voices.

Read the report here

McMaster study finds 5 to 1 ratio of male to female opinion

Another recent study of commentary pieces in Canada’s two major English-language newspapers also shows that women’s authorship remains at 1/5th the level of men’s, and remains largely absent from newspapers’ traditional “hard news” issues of politics, economics, and current events.

Sarah Marinelli and Philip Savage of McMaster University analyzed a random sample of 80 opinion-editorials in 2009 from The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star, examining not only the gender of op-ed authorship, but also the issues addressed, and authors’ professions. The 80-20% gender split was consistent in both papers and similar to the findings of a recent US study conducted by the Op Ed Project, which has recently updated this research.

Approximately 75% of the subjects addressed in the Canadian sample were in “hard news” areas of politics (40%), economics (15%), and foreign and national affairs (10% each). The remaining 25% was split among traditional soft news subjects such as social issues, health care, culture and the environment.

Whereas women comprised 20% of total Op-ed authorship, in the “hard news” subject areas their proportion of authorship dropped by half to 10%, with men writing 90% of all commentary on politics, national and international affairs, and business/economics. By contrast in the softer subject areas (which represented a smaller proportion of total op-eds published – about one-quarter) female authorship rose to 35%.

Hypothesizing that profession would be a key indicator for confidence in writing for the op-ed pages, the study found a substantial number of media professionals on the op-ed pages, including 47.5% of male authors and the majority (73%) of female authors. Among the other 27% of female authors, there were no female politicians or academics, whereas 21% of male authors were academics and 15% were politicians.

2010 MEDIA MONITORING RESEARCH: Women’s perspectives MIA in influential news media

Building on previous studies in both Canada and the US, and with the help of the University of Ottawa’s Media Relations Office, Informed Opinions monitored the commentary pages of six daily newspapers and analyzed the guest lists of three broadcast talk shows for up to two weeks earlier this spring.*

The results echo those documented by both US research and a recent McMaster University study (see below): women’s perspectives are missing in action in some of the highest profile media vehicles most likely to influence Canadians’ opinions on key public policy issues. Both English and French language media chronically under-represent women’s views. Only 16% of the op eds published in the six papers during the period surveyed were written by women, while female columnists represented 15% of the regular contributors in English language dailies, and 23% in French language newspapers.

The National Post reserves considerably more space for commentary than The Globe, The Star or The Citizen. Despite this, women’s voices are even less well represented in the Post (8% of columns and 9% of op eds) than in any of its competitors. Only the French language Le Droit does a poorer job (6%) among the print publications surveyed. In contrast, Le Devoir boasts the most female-friendly numbers, with women’s authorship comprising 53% of the Montreal-based paper’s signed editorials, 25% of its columns, and 20% of its op eds.)

In the sample studied, The Toronto Star represents a study in contrasts: Female columnists made up an impressive 44% of all in-house commentators, outshining all other English language dailies monitored by a significant margin. However, during the same week, not one of the 10 op eds published in The Star’s pages was by a woman.

Although an ad hoc review of The Globe and Mail’s op ed pages last fall found women-penned commentary at 23%, the week studied this spring reflected a significant (and perhaps anomalous) drop to 8%. Female columnists fared slightly better at 18%, however Margaret Wente, who usually writes three times a week, penned only one column in the period studied, no doubt skewing the numbers. (In the previous month-long sample of Globe op ed pages, Ms. Wente’s views comprised fully 40% of the female perspectives expressed on the paper’s comment pages.)

On the electronic front, both French and English public broadcasters did a better job of including women’s voices than the private station. CBC Radio’s The Current featured 31% female guests (11/35) and RDI’s Sans Frontieres managed 29% (15/52), but CTV’s Power Play, which focuses exclusively on federal politics, included only one woman out of 27 guests.

The dramatic gender gap has serious public policy implications in that the issues presented in these forums both reflect and influence government policy and priorities. The absence of women’s perspectives means that discussions of issues affecting women differently – from health care and labour practices to societal violence and participation in the third sector – fail to benefit from women’s informed opinions.

*Included in the sample were The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Ottawa Citizen, CBC Radio’s The Current and CTV’s Power Play. Complementary data were also collected from French language media outlets Le Devoir, Le Droit and the RDI program, Sans Frontieres. Each paper was monitored for a minimum of one week, and published between 11 and 35 op eds during the period studied. The overall number of female versus male voices in the form of columns, op eds, signed editorials (which appear in the two French language dailies), and talk show guests was 74 to 288, or 20%.

2013 Media Monitoring Research

Major dailies publishing more women experts in 2013 vs 2010

In a survey of the editorial pages of four major English-language Canadian daily newspapers earlier this spring, the amount of space devoted to female commentators’ perspectives appeared to increase significantly over a similar study conducted three years ago. Whereas opinion pieces written by women in the Globe and Mail, National Post, Ottawa Citizen and Toronto Star accounted for only 11% of those published in a period sampled in 2010, data collected in February – March of this year showed a doubling to 22% of all op eds.

The Ottawa Citizen’s data remained consistent between the two periods (about 28%) – and the highest among the four papers), but op eds written by women increased in the Globe and Mail and the National Post from 8% and 9% respectively in 2010, to 23% each this year. TheToronto Star, which had published no female op ed contributors in our previous sampling, featured 15% female experts this time.

This increase of women’s voices on op ed pages appears to be the result of a number of factors:

Our 2013 snapshot was more rigorous than the previous research, capturing three full weeks of each paper’s commentary, rather than the one to two weeks studied in 2010, and including pieces in both the print and online editions. (The limitations of the shorter 2010 sample included, for example, what turned out to be an anomalous drop in women’s commentary in the Globe. Previous research had documented the paper’s female op ed ratio ranging from 15 to 20%, well above the 8% we found.)

However, anecdotal evidence also suggests that more women are submitting commentary than ever before, and newspaper editors are more attuned to the under-representation of women on their pages than they were three years ago, and are working harder to address the imbalance.

ONLINE SPACE INCREASES PUBLICATION OPPORTUNITIES

The Globe and Mail, which has been supplementing its print pages with an online commentary hub, published almost three times (77) as many external commentators as the other papers studied (24, 25 and 29).

COLUMN DISTRIBUTION MORE EQUITABLE THAN OP EDS

Female columnists at the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail and Ottawa Citizen contributed about two-fifths of the papers’ staff commentary (40%, 39% and 37% respectively).

In contrast, the National Post sample (gathered online) featured only 20% of columns written by female writers. However, some of the Post’s regular contributors maintain regular blogs, and a few of the male writers are especially prolific in this respect, which had an impact on this ratio.

PROFESSIONAL BREAKDOWN OF CONTRIBUTORS VARIES BETWEEN PAPERS

What kinds of experts dominated the pages? Research scholars were featured most often by The Toronto Star (50%), the Globe and Mail (40%) and the Ottawa Citizen (39%), followed by think tank or NGO contributors (16%, 24% and 22% respectively). Writers and artists (broadly defined) made up the third largest category at both the Globe (9%) and the Citizen(22%), followed at those papers by journalists from other media (8% and 11%).

The National Post was again an outlier, featuring think tank or NGO contributors most often (27%), followed by media and academic writers (23% each), and political authors (11%).

INFORMED OPINIONS CONTRIBUTING TO INCREASE

Since its launch in 2010, Informed Opinions has delivered workshops to more than 480 female experts across the country, offering them insights into how to effectively translate their knowledge into short-form persuasive analysis appropriate to commentary pages and websites. The majority of our workshop participants have been university researchers, but a significant number work in the non-profit sector (including think tanks, associations and health and social service organizations).

More than 100** of our “graduates” have since published commentary in the newspapers studied, as well as in other dailies and online sites, on a wide range of issues. Most are also listed in our online Experts Network, which is designed to make it easier for journalists looking for expert women to find them.

** This number may be closer to 200; we’re only able to reliably track our grads’ commentary when they send it to us for editing feedback, and we know anecdotally that many submit and publish without soliciting the additional support we make available as part of the training we offer.

Is it true? Does “what gets measured get done”?

That was the impetus for our Gender Gap Tracker, which measures in real time the ratio of women vs men being quoted in Canada’s most influential news outlets. (This matters because diversity of sources is a measure of quality journalism. And the news media should reflect the realities and concerns of the population they serve — 50% of whom are women.)

We hoped that by making the data visible for all to see, we could inspire journalists to do better than they currently are. Bookmark this page to check out how CBC, Global, CTV, The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail and the National Post are performing on this metric — this week, last month or in 2018 when we started monitoring.

More women’s voices shaping Canada’s public conversations

In the 13 years since Informed Opinions began training women across sectors and fields to share their insights and analysis with the media, thousands of our “grads” have written commentary that’s been published across a wide range of Canadian print and online news platforms. Many more have said “yes” to media interviews that they might previously have declined. 

Curious to see if our training impact was translating into moving the needle in an aggregate way, in November 2019, Informed Opinions’ board chair at the time, Nobina Robinson, and advisory committee member, June Webber undertook a month-long content analysis study of the online comment hubs of three daily newspapers. (These typically feature more content than their print counterparts, because space is not at such a premium.)

The coding efforts captured the author, gender, topic, title and affiliation of every opinion piece by both regular columnists and op ed contributors at The Globe and Mail, The Ottawa Citizen and The Toronto Star for the entire month. 

The results — when compared with similar research we did in Spring of 2010 and February-March of 2013 — show that we are, indeed, making progress. Here’s what we found:

Over the past ten years, all three papers improved the representation of female contributors to their opinion sections, increasing commentary by women by at least eight per cent, and as much as 16%. And some of the women published in each paper are, indeed, women who’ve participated in our training and/or who are featured in our database. 

The data on female columnists (staff or freelance writers who are given a regular platform by the news outlet) revealed a more complicated picture. During the month of November, 57% of the published commentaries in the Toronto Star written by regular contributors were penned by women, up from an already impressive 40% in 2013. In contrast, the percentage of female columnists at both the Ottawa Citizen and the Globe and Mail declined in the same period. From a high of 43% in 2013, the Citizen dropped to 12%.  Meanwhile, female columnists in the Globe dropped from 39% seven years ago to 24% last fall.


We reached out to the comment section editors of all three papers to share our findings, gain a better understanding of the editors’ goals, and explore what, if anything, we might be able to do to support a more equitable representation of perspectives.  

Scott Colby at the Toronto Star responded immediately, offering candid feedback on his process and priorities. Looking at the print version of his paper, he says, makes clear how well the Star is doing in featuring women’s perspectives. Columnists’ bylines are accompanied by thumbnail photos, making it easy to see the gender breakdown. But, he says, he still receives many, many more op ed submissions from men than women, and — given the diversity of Toronto’s population — he’s especially focused on making sure the op eds he publishes reflect the voices of people of colour.  

Although Colby sometimes commissions opinion pieces, he says he often finds it especially difficult to recruit female contributors able and willing to comment on Canadian politics, international affairs and financial issues.

Like Colby, Ottawa Citizen comment page editor, Christina  Spencer, receives many more unsolicited op ed submissions from men than women, but says that when she’s able to commission pieces — seeking commentary on an emerging issue or breaking story — the women she approaches are as likely to say yes as their male counterparts. But Spencer acknowledges that as part of the Post Media chain of papers, The Citizen inherits many of its columnists from The National Post, the vast majority of whom are male. 

Although we didn’t receive a response to our query from the Globe, the reduction in female voices on the columnist side may be partly a function of the recent retirement of Margaret Wente, who previously wrote three times a week. (In our 2010 research, her views made up 40% of the female perspective published on the paper’s comment pages.)

The splintering of news audiences means that legacy news media exert less sway over public discourse today than they did a decade ago. However, comment pages and online hubs remain influential. Politicians and policy-makers pay attention to the ideas shared and positions advocated, and broadcast journalists seeking authoritative guests able to provide context for and analysis on timely issues also turn to opinion spaces.   

We have argued elsewhere for the importance of ensuring that such spaces — and news coverage more broadly — provide a diversity of perspectives more generally, and better reflect women’s perspectives in particular. It’s encouraging to see the progress reflected in this most recent research.