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At the end of 2020, Canada quietly reached a milestone: our first-ever gender-equal house of Parliament, the Senate.

Sen. Frances Lankin noted in December that there were 47 women and 47 men in the Senate.

My colleague Sen Frances Lankin noted, yesterday, on the 50th Anniversary of Cda’s Royal Commission on the Status of Women, that the had reached gender parity. During her speech tonight, I found myself thinking not of the benefits to women, but to Cdn society.

— Senator Colin Deacon (@colindeacon)

The balance shifted following the and .

But given the Senate’s institutional structure, the high number of women legislators generally allows for a strong representation of women’s interests in the upper house — which is why Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should make strides to return it to gender parity with his next Senate appointments.

In December 2020, Canada was tied with Australia for the (with the Caribbean’s Antigua and Barbuda taking the top spot).

In 2019, . Recently, the Canadian House of Commons reached 100 women MPs for the first time, .

Prime ministers have long used Senate appointments to make up for the lack of diversity in the House of Commons. The Senate was initially created, in fact, to protect the interests of minority regions. More recently, though, it’s become a chamber where the .

Senators generally speak up for marginalized groups by introducing legislation that protects their interests, and by scrutinizing and amending government legislation. That certainly isn’t always the case — Beyak retired from the Senate earlier this year amid a . But it was other senators, , who pushed for the departure of the Stephen Harper appointee.

Since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was introduced in 1982, Canadians have come to see themselves as belonging to groups that stretch across provincial borders. We tend to identify with each other based on our gender, ethnicity and language, and in that regard.

The significance of women in the Senate

But why should we care about the gender of our legislators? Don’t we need people best equipped to do the job?

In 1995, political theorist Anne Phillips wrote about “the politics of presence.” She maintains that , and the representation provided by individuals is influenced by their experiences.

In studies of representation, diversity is increasingly seen as beneficial for the policy-making process. Women senators bring unique viewpoints to the table that will shape legislation and policy in Canada. Gender cannot be the only reason a woman is chosen, but being a woman should not be a barrier due to outdated masculine selection criteria.

Researchers continue to investigate whether women legislators truly represent and look out for women in politics. There is mounting evidence suggesting that the representation of women’s interests is not only about the number of women in a legislature, but also about the presence of .

, which makes it all the more important that the Senate reaches gender parity again soon.

Men can certainly represent women’s interests, but empirical evidence shows that on their own initiative. However, research has shown that as the number of women in legislatures grows.

That means that as more women join the Canadian Senate, there will be more opportunities for them to work together as well as collaborating with like-minded male colleagues to advance women’s interests.

Senators have defied government wishes

There’s also hope that senators are in a better position to represent women’s interests than elected legislators in the House of Commons. Evidence from around the world supports .

But party discipline is relatively weak in the Canadian Senate. Senators are appointed, and they don’t have to toe the party line to ensure re-election.

. That means that in most cases, senators are not subject to party discipline at all. Therefore, they have the freedom to act for other groups seeking representation, including women, and in a non-partisan manner.

We’ve already seen examples of senators thwarting the government’s wishes to protect women’s interests. Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government’s advanced anti-choice abortion policy in Canada. Famously, the bill died in the Senate after a tie vote in 1991, when multiple Progressive Conservative senators, including three women, voted against the bill.

More recently, in 2017, senators pushed to , amending Bill S-3 to do so. While the initial amendment was rejected by the government, and ultimately

There is already some evidence of heightened feminist activity in the Canadian Senate as the number of women senators rises. Through interviews with senators in 2019, I unearthed a .

Given the important role played by women senators, it’s imperative that gender parity in the Senate is restored. Trudeau’s next Senate appointments will be ones to watch. It will be increasingly important to look for indicators that our senators are representing otherwise marginalized groups.

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, PhD Candidate, Political Studies, .

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