While the longtime liberal deputy Pam Damoff is preparing to leave politics when the next federal elections are called, she is melancholy but open to what pushes her to leave a career that she has had for more than a decade.
Vocal on misogyny and the threats she was confronted during her stay in government, she wants public security officials to take these threats more seriously.
“We have seen a change in the way people treat politicians, and I really fear that at some point, someone is injured or killed,” said Damoff in an interview.
Damoff said harassment was degenerated during the COVVI-19 pandemic.
“You must have difficult skin to be in politics, but it is really after the pandemic and it really started to cross the line to be an angry assault, by passing where people sent me death threats,” she said.
She adds: “I have no regrets to stand in the elections … The real problem is retention. Whether you are on a construction site, in journalism or in politics, we make better decisions when various voices are around the table. »»
While a little more than half of the Canadian population identifies as women, data of equal voices, a registered charity defending gender parity in Canadian politics, shows that less than one in three elected officials at the federal level is a woman.
A 2023 study by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities has shown roughly the same number of elected municipal officials, although women represent only one in five mayor.
Equal vocal data show that at the provincial level, the representation of women on average by 38%, varying by more than 50% in British Columbia to less than 25% in Newfoundland and Labrador.
In the provincial elections last month in Ontario, only 32.2% of the 768 candidates were women. When the results were recorded, 43 women were elected, representing 34% of the province’s seats.
Lindsay Brumwell, acting executive director at equality of voice, said that women represented between 32 and 39% in the last three provincial elections in Ontario.
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While the province has not yet reached parity between the sexes, it highlighted the importance of exceeding the 30%threshold, referring to the data of companies that suggest that progress is accelerating once the milestone is reached.
“I don’t want to say that things are great because it is not,” says Brumwell. “But I also don’t want to decrease the fact that we are starting to take important milestones. Now we hope to go to the next level. »»
Former liberal minister of the environment Catherine McKenna made the decision to move away in 2021, echoing the feelings similar to Damoff.
“I was just a normal person, I went to politics, I was not even a climate activist, I had done human rights work and international work, and I was a lawyer, but I did not expect that,” she said. »»
“And suddenly, I entered and I was immediately struck both with climate denial and misogyny in one.”
McKenna was initially targeted mainly online with variable misogynist insults and threats of assault, but he finally moved into the real world, with meetings sometimes while she was with her children. The problem has become quite bad, it sometimes received a security detail.
It underlines social media as a key engine of online hatred and calls for platform responsibility.
“For International Women’s Day, the big women celebrate women, but actually do more by really holding social media societies to account for them because they drive hatred and make women out of politics.”
The liberal vote of the leadership race on March 9 could mark a historic moment: two women are among the four candidates.
If it is elected, Karina Gould or Chrystia Freeland would become the second Prime Minister of Canada, following Kim Campbell.
In an interview, Gould acknowledged that harassment had worsened, in particular on social networks and by threats to his district office.
“It weighs on your mental health and your sense of security,” she said.
Like Damoff, she quoted the pandemic as an ignition factor, saying that it is a “very different environment in Canadian politics that he was not pre-countryic”.
“I think we all rely on collective trauma which was the pandemic, and some people, we treat more constructive, and other people, use this anger and this frustration, and withdraw it from other people,” she said.
Following a wave of politicians’ departures in 2022, the historian Alexandre Dumas was responsible for studying the trend in the women’s committee of the Circle of Ex-Parlements of the National Assembly of Quebec.
His report, “Why do women leave politics?” Compiled the ideas of 21 women who had left politics, many of whom thought their skills were underused.
“They wanted to be useful,” explains Marie Malavoy, president of the women’s committee of the Circle of Ex-Parlements of the Quebec National Assembly.
“They wanted their skills and skills to be well used, and if you feel that for four years, well, at the end of time, you wonder, am I in the right place for me?”
Although there are challenges, McKenna and Gould both declared that it was essential to have women’s voices at the table.
“These are not only women in politics, but the health of our democracy.” Said McKenna.
“The key is to recognize that you have something to offer and that your voice counts, and it is important that you are in these spaces, because half the population is women, and it is important for us to take this space, to be in this space and to ensure that our voices are heard,” said Gould.
Gould highlighted the importance of mentorship and support.
“My philosophy has always been, you open the door, then keep it open for the next generation, but you then pass and also pull the next generation forward.
This Canadian press report was published for the first time on March 8, 2025.