Québec Solidaire candidate drops party over new policy on gender parity

The departure of a former Québec Solidaire (QS) byelection candidate from the party has renewed debate on ways to achieve gender parity in provincial politics.

Olivier Bolduc, a three-time QS candidate in the Jean-Talon riding, confirmed in an email that he no longer wants to be part of QS, after members passed a resolution over the weekend on how the party will choose byelection candidates. 

Party members voted on a resolution, at the QS convention in Gatineau, to nominate only women or non-binary candidates for byelections between now and the next party convention in the fall of 2024. 

When the QS Jean-Talon riding association chose Bolduc to run in the October byelection in Quebec City, the decision caused an uproar because party leadership had been advocating to have a woman run. 

In February, QS members had voted to develop strategies to run female candidates in certain ridings and help achieve gender parity in a caucus that currently consists of eight men and four women. 

In response to Bolduc's announcement, newly named QS co-spokesperson Émilise Lessard-Therrien — who replaced Manon Massé — emphasized the importance of women's presence in electoral politics and called parity "fundamental."

"The last election worked against us," Lessard-Therrien said, alluding to the mostly male QS candidates getting elected. 

"We want to give ourselves a means to regain this balance and bring back women," she said. "This is a temporary measure. I believe in this resolution."

Changing the system

Despite Bolduc's fallout with the party, Kimberley Manning, principal of Concordia University's Simone de Beauvoir Institute, says initiatives like QS's resolution have "the potential for creating more long-lasting and sustainable change."

She says research suggests that taking deliberate measures to achieve parity can be "very effective" in reducing barriers that prevent gender and racialized minorities from entering politics. 

"Those challenges are many and they are very deep, including in Canada," Manning said. 

Discussions on quotas are less prevalent in Canada and the U.S., she says. However, since the fourth World Conference on Women, there has been a worldwide push toward introducing quota systems to see more women and members of other marginalized groups run for office. 

Although the resolution might be causing a stir in the wake of Bolduc's departure, achieving gender parity has always been part of QS's fabric, which had — until recently — helped them stand out, says Joanie Bouchard, an assistant professor of political science at the Université de Sherbrooke.

Running more female candidates has been a stated goal for most Quebec parties since 2018, she said. 

But even when a party does pick a woman, racialized, trans or non-binary candidate, Bouchard says picking a riding where they can win is critical. 

"There is a difference between the candidates that they will put forward and, in the end, who will be elected," she said. 

Her research suggests that, with the exception of party leaders — who are expected to receive most media coverage — even when female candidates are elected, news reports tend to focus on male candidates. 

Bouchard says parity might be achieved faster if Quebec changed its electoral system — a recurring campaign promise across parties — to a mixed proportional system that would allow parties to position candidates from underrepresented groups first on the list. 

For his part, Bolduc says the resolution risks alienating people, like him, who share the party's values, at a time when it should welcome their help if it wants to form government.

"I don't think that men are oppressed in Quebec. I think that we have to recognize that white, heterosexual men have a systemic advantage,'' he said in an interview with the Canadian Press.

"But when we look at the efforts that certain people have made and the contribution that some men make, we have to recognize that as well.''