A common misconception, and one repeated by a panelist on a local political debate show last week, is that Islanders don’t tend to vote for women in provincial elections when they’re nominated by their party to run; resulting in the routinely low number of women we see in the provincial legislature.
It actually turns out that the opposite has been true in the 21st century. According to information obtained from the Elections P.E.I. website, in the five provincial elections between 2000 and 2015, women were successful 23 times in the 42 races in which the Liberal and PC parties pitted a man against a woman — a 55 per cent win rate.
So, as it turns out, it really hasn’t been a problem for women to win votes in the general election after receiving their party’s nomination. Rather, it seems to be an issue of the Liberal and PC parties failing to nominate many women in the first place.
Case in point: over those five elections, a total of 270 PC and Liberal candidates had their names on the ballot.
Of those 270, only 56 or 20 per cent were women.
Justin Clow,
Charlottetown
