'Not a huge step forward': Gender parity improves slightly in N.S. Legislature

The number of seats in the legislature filled by women and gender-diverse people will increase slightly once the newly elected candidates are sworn in as MLAs.

Nova Scotians elected 20 women or gender-diverse candidates, making up about 36 per cent of the 55 seats in the expanded legislature.

That percentage of non-male-identifying MLAs is up from the 29 per cent — 15 of 51 seats — who were in the House before it was dissolved for the election.

Sarah Dobson, a lawyer who recently co-authored a book about women in Nova Scotia politics, said there were no great surprises in the gender diversity of the election results.

"It's a step forward. It's not a huge step forward," she said.

"I don't think we made any extraordinary leaps forward in terms of progress, but we haven't really seen those leaps ever in politics generally."

Slight increase since 2017 election

After the 2017 election, there were 17 female MLAs, making up 33 per cent, but the number of women dropped to 15 after Lenore Zann left provincial politics to become MP for Cumberland-Colchester, and Margaret Miller retired on June 1, just six weeks before the election was called.

While the election will see a net increase of five women or gender-diverse MLAs, the overall percentage won't increase greatly, as four new ridings were created in the province since the last election.

Seats were added in Argyle, Clare, Preston and Richmond to increase the representation of Acadian and Black MLAs at Province House. 

More diverse candidates

In the 2021 election, the three major parties made an effort to put forward more female and gender-diverse candidates, running them in half or nearly half of the races.

Dobson said the fact that the percentage of successful non-male-identifying candidates remains well below half may reflect an unintentional and historical tendency to run women in ridings where they are less likely to win.

"I hope it doesn't indicate that women are less likely to win when they're on the ballot. But I think we need to be shifting focus to ensuring that, you know, women are running in equal numbers in the ridings that are important to the party and that might actually translate into seats in the House," she said.

Dobson said she hopes more progress toward gender diversity is made with each election.

She said in addition to the political parties' recruitment strategies, societal changes are needed to encourage more female, gender-diverse and racially diverse candidates to run.

"There are many aspects to it, some of which, you know, really can't even be solved by an overnight policy change — those being the structure of our families, the structure of our society and the expectations on women within the household and with child care and those types of issues."

What do the caucuses look like?

Before the legislature was dissolved for this election, the Liberals had six female MLAs, the NDP had four, the Progressive Conservatives had three and there were two Independents.

Once the elected candidates are sworn in, the Progressive Conservative caucus will have nine, the Liberals will have five, the NDP will have five and there will be one Independent, Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin.