Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary

The Caribbean member-states, despite their differences, (4 languages, 5 colonial legacies, terrain: mountains -vs- limestone islands), have a lot in common. Some similarities include:

• Lack of equality for women compared to men.
• The government is the largest employer.

So the reality of Caribbean life is that while the governmental administrations are not fully representative of the populations, they are responsible for all societal engines: economy, security and governance.

This is bad and this is good! Bad, because all the “eggs are in the same basket”. Good, because there is only one entity to reform, reboot and re-focus.

So how do we seriously consider reforming government in the Caribbean?

• Start anew.
• Start with politics and policy-makers.
• Start with the people who submit for politics, to be policy-makers.
• Start with people who participate in the process.

Considering the status-quo of the region – in crisis – there is this need to start again. But this time we need more women.

Consider Canada!

(The City of Detroit is across the river from Windsor, Ontario, Canada. The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean are here to “observe and report” the turn-around and rebirth of the once-great-but-now-distressed City of Detroit and its metropolitan area. This proximity also allows us to observe-and-report on Detroit’s neighbor: Canada).

The Canadian political landscape can serve as a great role model for the Caribbean; (its a fitting role model for Detroit too). Consider these articles on Canada’s recent national elections:

News Article #1 Title: 50% population, 25% representation. Why the parliamentary gender gap?

A record 88 women were elected in the 2015 federal election, up from 76 in 2011. The increase represents a modest gain in terms of representation, with women now accounting for 26 per cent of the seats in the House. The following feature — which was initially published before the election — examines the gender imbalance in Canadian politics.

Canadian women held just one-quarter of the seats in the House of Commons when the writ dropped back in August. This figure places us 50th in a recent international ranking of women in parliaments.

The 41st Canadian Parliament featured 77 women MPs, with a record 12 female ministers in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet.

The NDP’s success in Quebec during the 2011 federal election largely triggered the uptick in the number of women in Parliament, with the proportion rising to 25 per cent from 22 per cent in the 2008 election.

In spite of this, a large gender gap persists after decades of relative stagnation in Canada’s House of Commons. Women comprise just 33 per cent of the candidates from the five leading parties in this election.

“There is no doubt that in the old democracies, including Canada, there is stagnation,” said Drude Dahlerup, a political scientist from the University of Stockholm who has consulted in countries such as Tunisia and Sierra Leone on gender equality in parliament.

“We have this perception that gender equality should come naturally. Our research shows that is not necessarily a fact.”

Old democracies don’t favour ‘gender shocks’
There is significant growth in women representatives in what Dahlerup calls “fast-track” countries — places that have experienced recent conflict or are a new democracy.

In fact, some of the countries outpacing Canada in terms of parliamentary gender equality include Rwanda, Bolivia, Iraq and Kazakhstan.

Newer democracies like Bolivia can experience a gender shock as it did in an October 2014 election, rising from 22 per cent to 53 per cent women in the lower house.

Older democracies take the incremental approach, which is slower and involves grappling with the conventions of older institutions.

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Does the electorate share some of the blame?
Despite what some term as a patronizing treatment in the public sphere it appears that gender is not a chief concern for voters.

Sylvia Bashevkin, a political scientist from the University of Toronto, looked at the negative effects of underrepresentation for women in her 2009 book Women, Power, Politics: The Hidden Story of Canada’s Unfinished Democracy and found a persistent marginalization of women’s contributions to politics in the media and public sphere.

“There’s a certain stream of gender stereotyping that still colours our discussions of public leadership that often tends to trivialize the contributions of women by paying particular attention to things like their appearance, speaking style or their personal lives rather than positions on policy.”

According to a recent poll, party loyalty factors far outweigh individual factors such as gender. In fact, respondents said women often tend to represent leadership qualities the voting public admires. The online Abacus survey was conducted in December 2014 and included a sample size of 1,438 Canadians.

“The argument is that [women] tend to be more community focused… and that they tend on average to be more honest and trustworthy than male politicians,” said Bashevkin.

The core of the issue comes back to the political parties and their nominations processes, says Melanee Thomas, a political scientist from the University of Calgary.

“We can find no evidence that voters discriminate against women candidates. We did find considerable evidence that party [nomination committees] were more likely to discriminate against women candidates,” said Thomas.

Thomas’s 2013 research with Marc André Bodet of LavalUniversity looked at district competitiveness. They found that women were more likely to be chosen as nominees in areas considered strongholds for other parties.

Where women are involved in the party nomination process, Thomas also said, more women are recruited to run for that nomination. Former MP and deputy prime minister Sheila Copps agrees.

“People try to replicate themselves and their social circle is usually very like-minded. I probably recruited more women in my time because it’s human nature,” said Copps.

Copps played a role in pitching the concept of a gender target of 25 per cent to former prime minister Jean Chrétien in 1993.

The target concept relies on the ability of the party leader to appoint women nominees required to meet the target.

Former prime minister Paul Martin opted to not have a target for women in the federal Liberal Party for 2004 while Stéphane Dion increased the target to 30 per cent in 2008.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is running with an open nomination policy for the upcoming election, although this has caused some recent controversies. Ultimately, women comprised 31 per cent of the Liberal candidates.

The NDP has internal mechanisms to attempt to foster diversity. They say they have “parity policies,” that aim for gender diversity in the party structure, leadership and delegates.” It also insists that ridings must provide documentation of efforts to search for a woman or minority candidate before selecting a white male. When the final candidate list was released, the NDP touted a record proportion of 43 per cent women candidates.

Under the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Conservative Party holds that the matter should be left up to the local riding associations to determine. After running only 38 women candidates in 2006 the party’s figure spiked quickly in 2008 to 63 candidates. In 2015, 66 women, representing 20 per cent of the Conservatives roster of candidates, are in the running.

Read the whole story here: CBC News Site retrieved 11/13/2013 from: http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/women-politics/

VIDEO 1 – Canada’s First Woman MP Agnes Macphail – https://youtu.be/0ALgilFMkug

Published on Sep 11, 2014 – Canada’s first female MP takes up the cause of Canadian penal system reform (1935).

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VIDEO 2 – MacPhail’s Successors – https://youtu.be/fyK7C6DA9lI

Published on Oct 21, 2015 – Political Scientist Sylvia Bashevkin reviews Canada’s gender facts: 50% population, 25% representation Why the parliamentary gender gap?

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News Article #2 Title: New PM unveils cabinet that looks ‘like Canada’
Sub-title: Justin Trudeau’s younger, more diverse team comprises old-guard Liberal politicians and newcomers, half of them women.

Justin Trudeau has been sworn in as Canada’s new prime minister, appointing a cabinet that he says looks “like Canada”.

The 43-year-old Liberal party leader, who swept to power in a general election two weeks ago to end nearly a decade of Conservative rule, took the oath on Wednesday and promised big changes as he introduced a younger, more diverse cabinet.

Most of the new ministers are between the ages of 35 and 50, while half of them are women – in line with Trudeau’s campaign pledge.

Asked why gender balance was important, Trudeau’s response was: “Because it’s 2015.

“Canadians from all across this country sent a message that it is time for real change, and I am deeply honoured by the faith they have placed in my team and me.”

The new cabinet includes a mix of old-guard Liberal politicians with many newcomers.

Among them is Indian-born Harjit Sajjan, a former Canadian soldier and Afghanistan war veteran who was named as Canada’s new defence minister.

He was Canada’s first Sikh commanding officer and received a number of recognitions for his service, having been deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Sajjan, a lieutenant-colonel in Canada’s armed forces, will oversee an anticipated change in Canada’s military involvement in the battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters in Syria and Iraq.

…

Read the whole story here: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/canada-pm-trudeau-diverse-women-cabinet-151105062433796.html posted November 5, 2015 by Al Jazerra News Service; retrieved November 13, 2015

This is not just a case for feminism. The issues in the foregoing news articles relate to policy-making participation and optimization, more than they relate to feminism. This story is being brought into focus in a consideration of the book Go Lean … Caribbean. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the societal elevation in the region. This roadmap calls for a fuller participation from women as stakeholders.

How do the foregoing stories relate to the Caribbean? The book relates that Canada (Page 146) has always provided a great role model for the Caribbean to consider for empowerment and elevation of our society. That country is a “friend” of the Caribbean; but it is also a competitor; a “frienemy” of sorts. How are we competing? What is our rate of participation of women in politics? See CHART here:

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CHART – Caribbean Women Political Participation

^ – Includes: Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten
* – The Women Suffrage Timeline: http://womensuffrage.org/?page_id=69
# – Women in National Parliaments (2015) retrieved Oct. 29, 2015 from: http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm

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The Go Lean book advocates for more women in position of authority and decision-making in the new Caribbean.

Why is this necessary?

Simple: With 50% of the population, there is the need for 50% of the representation; (this is the target). The foregoing CHART, however shows a different reality. These facts align with the Go Lean book’s quest to elevate Caribbean society.

Among the crises that the region contends with is human flight, the brain drain or abandonment of the highly educated citizenry. Why do they leave? For “push-and-pull” reasons!

“Push” refers to deficient conditions at home that makes people want to flee. “Pull” refers to better conditions abroad that appeals to Caribbean residents. They want that better life.

An underlying mission of the CU is to dissuade this human flight (and incentivize repatriation of the far-flung Diaspora). Canada is one of those refuge countries; a large number of Caribbean Diaspora live there. This country does a better job of facilitating participation from women in the political process. In competition of the Caribbean versus Canada, the Caribbean needs to do better.

For this lofty goal, of which we are failing, we can learn from Canada – our competitor – and follow their lead!

Change has come to the Caribbean. As the roadmap depicts, there is the need to foster more collaboration and optimization in the region’s governing eco-system. This involves including all ready, willing and abled stakeholders, men or women. In the Summer 2015 Blockbuster Movie Tomorrowland, the main character Frank Walker – played by George Clooney – advised the audience hoping to impact their communities for change:

“Find the ones who haven’t given up. They are the future”.

Women participating more readily in the political process can help a community.

This has been proven true. Consider the example of Rwanda. (The country first on the above list). This country has endured a lot (Genocide in the 1990’s between Hutu and Tutsi tribes). Now, despite being a poorer African country, they have healed a lot of social issues. They now have many women in policy-making roles; and they have  transformed their society and now feature a great turn-around story. See details here:

Since 2000 Rwanda’s economy,^[51] tourist numbers,^[52] and Human Development Index have grown rapidly;^[53] between 2006 and 2011 the poverty rate reduced from 57% to 45%,^[54] while life expectancy rose from 46.6 years in 2000^[55] to 59.7 years in 2015.^[56] …

Following the 2013 election, there are 51 female deputies,^[78] up from 45 in 2008;^[79] as of 2015, Rwanda is one of only two countries with a female majority in the national parliament.^[80]
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda#CITEREFCJCR2003 retrieved November 13, 2015.)

The Go Lean roadmap posits that every woman has a right to work towards making their homeland a better place to live, work and play. The book details the following community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocates to impact our homeland:

There are serious issues impacting the Caribbean; these must be addressed . Since many of these issues affect women, it is better to have women as stakeholders, as policy-makers and as politicians.

Many of these issues have been addressed in previous Go Lean blog/commentaries, as sampled here:

Politics represent the power of the people. Women represent 50% of the population; to engage the population, we must engage women. But, we need the women to engage as well, to lean-in, to this roadmap to elevate their societal engines (economy, security and governance). The goal of the Go Lean roadmap is to make the Caribbean a better place to live work and play; for all, regardless of gender.

This is not politics. This is not feminism. This is simply a quest for “better”. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!