If she could see the electoral map of Quebec in this day after municipal elections, Elsie Gibbons would undoubtedly display a pretty pink of pride in the cheeks. Elsie Gibbons? The first woman elected to head a city in Quebec, in 1953, barely thirteen years after obtaining the right to vote for women. She would welcome the advance of women in municipal politics: in 2021, nearly a quarter (23%) of municipalities in Quebec elected a woman to lead their destiny, including half of the ten largest cities. And 38% of city councilors are … councilors.
Since Elsie Gibbons was elected (by acclamation, while she was absent!), The distance traveled has been enormous. This merchant from Portage-du-Fort, in the Outaouais region, seemed to local citizens the candidate of choice to defend their need for a drinking water distribution network in the early 1950s.me Gibbons reigned over Portage-du-Fort for 18 years for a first long series of terms, but it was not until 1959 that she began to be called “Mr.me Mayor Elsie Gibbons ”: for the first six years of her reign, she had no choice but to bear her husband’s full name. She succeeded in convincing Quebec to partially finance access to drinking water, in addition to building an entire network of sports and leisure facilities, paving the streets of her community and erecting a fire department. brand new.
The constantly ascending curve of the proportion of women in municipal politics has something to rejoice in all the supporters of better parity. Since 2005, this proportion of women in the positions of councilors and mayors has steadily gained percentage points from election to election. All positions combined, the percentage of elected women rose from 24.8% in 2005 to 36.1% in 2021, in five elections, according to preliminary data compiled by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
This remarkable breakthrough was highlighted as the results were released on Sunday evening. In key and major cities, such as Montreal (Valérie Plante), Longueuil (Catherine Fournier), Saguenay (Julie Dufour), Sherbrooke (Évelyne Beaudin) and Gatineau (France Bélisle), the keys to the town hall belong to a woman. In some municipalities, only women were candidates.
We dream of the day when it will no longer be necessary to outline this breakthrough of women as if it were a feat. The normalization of this rise will indeed follow, when real parity becomes part of the mores. We also dream of the day when governing with a smile – the trademark of Valérie Plante, who even made it one of the first highlights of her victory speech – will no longer be worthy of mention, as if it were an incongruity in the exercise of power and which to manage in a responsible and firm manner could not go hand in hand with anything other than an air of stupidity.
How will the municipal political map of Quebec change the situation? In addition to the feminization of power, observers have noted a real rejuvenation on the side of elected mayors and mayors and city councilors. The average age of the leaders of the six largest cities in Quebec? 39 years old. Including three in their early thirties and one – Catherine Fournier – on the threshold of her 30th birthday. This breath of fresh air is certainly accompanied by a greenness that some could associate in a simplistic way with inexperience, but before shattering hopes let us salute the progressivism which could perhaps agree with a wave of elected officials 2.0.
In terms of the environment, for example. If some elected officials start their mandate with questions of species survival – the delicate case of the chorus frog falls to Catherine Fournier, who was approached a few hours after her victory due to an intervention in the file of Minister Steven Guilbeault -, all will have to settle questions linked directly or indirectly to the climate crisis, hotly discussed these days in Glasgow. With the regional planning and transport files, citizens who hope for a green leader will quickly know whether the promises of change will turn into concrete actions. The new – and miraculous – mayor of Quebec, Bruno Marchand, will not be able to wrap himself in neutrality forever on the burning site of the third link.
In terms of disappointments, let us note the starving national rate of participation in the elections, which, according to still preliminary information, is barely around 30% (29.3%), in total collapse since 2005, when it was 44.5%. . Disappointed with this low score, which can perhaps be attributed in part to the stigma of the pandemic, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Andrée Laforest, insists that Quebec is ripe for electronic voting. It is an avenue that would make it possible to strengthen democracy.