Friday, February 09, 2007

Affirmative Action

Give Stephane Dion credit for this much; whenever he sets himself impossible targets that can only be met with devastating consequences, he still barrels ahead to meet them:

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion is prepared to take "extraordinary measures" to boost the ranks of women candidates, including barring men from seeking nominations in some ridings.

During last year's leadership race, Dion promised that under his watch at least a third of the party's candidates in the next election would be women.

But campaign organizers conclude that will be impossible without intervention to secure nominations for women.

So-called green-light committees, set up to run the party's nomination process in each province, have been empowered to ensure the 33 per cent target is met. Among other things, the committees can approve or reject nomination papers from would-be candidates.

Where necessary, the committees will be able to simply refuse to allow men to run for nominations in some ridings.


What a condescending way to treat women in the party, as delicate creatures unable to compete in the rough-and-tumble of intra-party politics against men. Yet after the nomination process, they'll be expected to fight a campaign on the same terms as any other man. There'll be no special consideration for feminine weakness on the campaign trail.

At a micro level, these quotas for women represent the same problem that Dion's obsession with Kyoto emissions targets represent at a macro level: a fixation on abstract goals without consideration of concrete effects.

Source: Toronto Star

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As a woman, I can't stand the ideas of quotas for female candidates or barring men from being candidates in certain ridings. We're supposed to be a country that believes in equality for all - that means an equal opportunity to rise or to fail on our own merits. Someone needs to talk some sense into Dion quickly!