"I think anyone who has an appreciation of politics will be able to understand this system [the current system] is set up really for middle-aged white males," says Gerard Kennedy, special advisor to Liberal leader Stéphane Dion for election readiness and renewal.

"Some effort needs to be done to encourage, recruit and empower women and to bring the party kicking and screaming into the 21st century."

The 'Famous Five' wait for company on Parliament Hill.

The party floated the idea of holding women-only nominations earlier this year as a possible means to boost the ranks of female candidates in the next election. During last year’s Liberal leadership race, Stéphane Dion said he wanted one-third of Liberal candidates in the next election to be women.

"The party in general agrees that this is an inconsistency that has to be remedied," says Kennedy. "It is just way overdue."

Currently, women comprise only 21 per cent of all MPs in the House of Commons, despite the fact that they represent more than half of the Canadian population.

The Liberals have 21 female MPs in their 101-person caucus.

As of January 2007, Canada ranked 47th in the Inter-Parliamentary Union in electing women, behind countries like Rwanda, Cuba and Mozambique.

To address the shortage of female parliamentarians, the Liberals appointed Linda Julien, a Montreal lawyer, as Women’s Candidate Search Director to recruit women to run. So-called green-light committees have been struck to meet the party’s 33 per cent target. These committees are designed to compile personal information, interview, evaluate and scrutinize potential candidates.

No lack of interest

"For quite a while, we will need intervention on behalf of the party to make this plan become a reality," she said. "What we are trying to do right now is to level the playing field."

Julien said she is encouraged by the interest, and that her phones are presently "ringing off the hook" with potential candidates.

Breakdown of candidates in 2006 federal election. Click to open in PDF.

At this point, Julien said she has more than100 documented candidates, with about 50 from Ontario, over 40 from Quebec, about a dozen from the Atlantic region and up to a dozen candidates in each of the Western and Prairie provinces.

Carolyn Bennett, a Toronto-area Liberal MP and long-time advocate of increased female representation, says gender should not be the sole consideration when determining nominations.

"We [the Liberal party] have always shunned having women leapfrog over a better candidate for the sake of chromosomes."

However, she adds: "The old boys club has worked very well for the boys in the past. We just want it to work for the girls now, too."

Bennett said she believes reaching the one-third female candidates plateau this time around will be a challenge, given that Dion has promised to protect all the incumbent Liberal MPs from nomination challenges.

Tories reject quotas

To meet its 33 per cent target, the Liberals need to run 103 female candidates in the next election. By contrast, Bev Oda, the minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women says that while she supports having more women in parliament, the Conservative party would never institute a quota system like the Liberals.

"It just seems like a superficial approach and is reflective of the Liberal party’s approach to women in Canada," she says. "They have a women’s caucus, which separates the women members from the men. They have a Pink Book which places the views and interests of female Canadians in a different book from the party book…You don’t need someone to manipulate the democratic nomination system within the ridings."

However, Jill Vickers, a Chancellor’s professor of political science at Carleton University, disagrees with Oda. She says if more women are going to be elected, political parties need to intervene with some kind of nomination strategy.

"[Increased female representation] will not happen otherwise," she said. "Parties are the gatekeepers. They have a stranglehold on who represents us."

Substantive action needed

Vickers says having ridings with only women candidates is probably the only sure-fire way to boost the ranks of women in any party’s caucus, given the nature of Canada’s current first-past-the-post electoral system.

This wouldn’t be the first time in Canadian history that an all-women process has been considered to boost the number of females contesting in elections.

Women in Canadian politics How much do you know about women in politics? Take our quiz! Requires FlashPlayer

Vickers says former prime minister Pierre Trudeau was so embarrassed by the lack of women candidates from Quebec in his caucus that he held an all-women nomination process. This "leader coercion" paved the way for the election of high-profile candidates like Jeanne Sauvé and Monique Bégin.

Kennedy said the Liberals are well aware of the potential price they may pay at the polls for pushing women candidates.

"I think anytime you do something that is advancing things artificially and make changes, there is a price we will pay," said Kennedy.

"We are asking Canadians to really think hard that this isn’t about advantaging women, it’s about leveling the playing field. Any appointment would come with a cost because it’s not strictly speaking democratic, but justifiable under the circumstances."

Related Links National Women's Liberal Commission Equal Voice Library of Parliament research paper on women in parliament Submissions to the Liberal Task Force on Women Inter-Parliamentary Union on women in politics