Canada’s federal cabinet might be the most gender balanced government in its history, but Canada is a long way off from full gender parity, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was reminded Friday on his final day in Davos, Switzerland.
Trudeau took part in a panel discussion on progress in global gender parity at the World Economic Forum (WEF) attended by Melinda Gates, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Chinese real estate magnate Zhan Xin and Jonas Prising, chairman and CEO of ManPower Group.
(Watch the panel discussion on progress towards gender parity with PM Justin Trudeau: Video)
His presence on the panel stemmed in part from the parity in the cabinet he named last year and his off-the-cuff explanation for that: “Because it’s 2015,” which made global headlines and became a rallying cry for gender equality advocates worldwide.
Panel moderator, Canadian-born BBC journalist Lyse Doucet, wasted no time reminding Trudeau that despite its cabinet gender parity, Canada ranks 30th overall in the WEF Global Gender Gap 2015 Report.
“There is a lot of hard work to do,” Trudeau admitted. “I was obviously pleased when people took notice of our gender-balanced balanced cabinet, but people have to know that before I could say: ‘Because it’s 2015’ an awful lot of hard work went into 2012, 2013 and 2014 to get to that place.”
The Liberal party had to undertake a vast campaign on social media and the Internet called “Ask Her to Run” to convince prominent women to run for office, Trudeau said.
“I personally convinced a number of extraordinary women, along with a number of extraordinary men, to step forward into the public office,” Trudeau said.
One of those women, Canada’s International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland, accompanied Trudeau on his trip to Davos.
“It took an awful a lot of arm-twisting before she decided because of family reasons, because of personal and professional reasons that she should take this leap and frankly all of Canada and all of the world should be happy she did because she’s doing an extraordinary job,” Trudeau said.
But even with all that effort to attract women to run for public office only 26 per cent of federal Canadian parliamentarians are women, just one per cent more than Afghanistan, Doucet reminded Trudeau.
In the WEF Global Gender Gap 2015 Report, Canada ranked 40th for the number of women in politics and key leadership positions and only 80th out of 130 countries when it came to wage equality for women.
“The strength of any society depends on the full participation of all its citizens, including women,” Trudeau said. “Ensuring gender parity and the advancement of women’s rights should be a given in 2016.”
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