The arrival of a baby during their mandate forces elected municipal officials to juggle roles that are difficult to reconcile. A councilor from Quebec, 37 weeks pregnant, asks the authorities to dust off the laws to take into account the increasingly important place of young women in the political arena.
The prominent belly of Jackie Smith, leader and sole elected member of the Transition Québec party, does not lie: she is expecting a second child, a little girl this time, by the end of the month. At 37 weeks pregnant, her steps are slower. His head, above all, is elsewhere.
“It’s uncomfortable to the point where it distracts me, explains the municipal councilor of Limoilou. Just finding a position where I’m able to breathe without hurting my back is really not easy. »
She will attend a last municipal council on Tuesday before giving birth to a new citizen in Quebec. The little one will be born before the summer: her mother will find her elected seat before the fall. The law grants, since 2016, 18 consecutive weeks of parental leave to elected officials at the municipal level. Before, an elected official who was absent for more than 90 days lost his seat – in addition to incurring financial penalties.
The new law barely allows a season, therefore, to welcome the newborn and acclimatize to life in four, before putting on her shoes as a counselor. At the Smiths, there was no chance in the arrival of the stork: it was the political calendar that dictated the advent of the baby.
She and her spouse wanted this second child as early as 2021, but the couple decided to delay his birth for a few years to avoid campaigning with a newborn. The advent of the small now coincides with the summer, a period of break at the town hall.
“It’s not normal to plan your family around these constraints, believes Jackie Smith. I think this is a major impediment for women who decide to get into politics. »
The councilor is now campaigning for the authorities to dust off laws and regulations and facilitate the work-family balance of elected municipal officials. In Montreal, for example, the City has authorized since 2020 the hiring of a political attaché to support newly elected parents in fulfilling their obligations to the population.
Nothing like this exists in Quebec.
According to Jackie Smith, elected officials should be entitled to a one-year parental leave “like in all other professions”. They should also be able to appoint someone to replace them during their absence and thus prevent the population from losing their voice on the municipal council.
However, Quebec law prevents these accommodations, which would make life easier for new parents. Elected officials, for example, cannot exercise their right to vote remotely either. This way of doing things, which had become the norm during the pandemic, ended at the end of the government decree which authorized it and it is again imperative, since then, to make an appearance in the council room to participate in the debates.
an archaism
“It sends a bad message, notes the president of the Réseau Femmes et politique municipale de la Capitale-Nationale (RFPM), Manon Therrien. Women must be allowed to pursue representative activities, without infringing the right of elected mothers to give birth. »
The 2020 Welcome and Reference Guide that the government gives to elected municipal officials does not include any information about the arrival of a baby in the life of a councilor or mayor during her term of office. A symptomatic absence of a certain archaism in places of public power, according to the president of the RFPM.
“We have invested in having children in Quebec, and on the other side, we don’t give our politicians the tools to have a family. Our institutions are democratic, adds Manon Therrien: they should not penalize anyone who wants to start a family. »
The last municipal elections, in 2021, however, saw an unprecedented cohort of women brought to power. According to the Union of Quebec Municipalities (UMQ), there were 257 mayors and 2,626 councilors the day after November 7, 2021. These represent, respectively, 23.6% and 38.5% of the positions to be filled within the municipal councils of Quebec.
In less than 45 years, Quebec has made a giant leap on the road to parity. In 1980, for example, female mayors represented only 1.5% and female councillors, 3.8% of elected officials. Balancing family and political obligations, however, has not kept pace, many say.
A survey by the Fédération québécoise des municipales showed, in 2017, that 36% of elected officials under the age of 45, men and women alike, “often or always” had difficulty reconciling work and family. This reality is particularly felt in small towns, where the mayor’s or councilor’s salary is often not enough to meet his or her needs. Elected officials must then juggle their political role, their professional career and their family life – a balance that is high-flying, even in big cities, according to Jackie Smith.
“Everything we do now, we’re going to have to keep doing, but with a baby. It’s going to be a big challenge, she projects. We’re going to get through it, but I also don’t want it to set a precedent and people be like, ‘Jackie Smith did all this with her baby, why do we need maternity leave?’ ‘”
The answer may be found at the very entrance of Quebec City Hall. On either side of the corridor that crosses the century-old building on either side are the portraits of the mayors who, since Elzéar Bédard in 1833, have run the capital. In the middle of 36 men, only one mayor appears: Andrée Boucher, the one and only woman to have held the reins of Quebec. She did it for barely 21 months, an exception that confirms rules to the advantage of men for almost two centuries.