Skip to main content

Babies in the House

Listening to "As It Happens" this evening, there was an interview with Minister for Democratic Institutions, Karina Gould (pictured below left, source Hill Times), who has taken flack for breastfeeding in the House of Commons. It seems there is a distinction between being a Minister and a plain old parliamentarian in the back benches or opposition. Here's another call-out box I've written for the chapter on women representatives for the book. It gives some background on the breastfeeding in parliament issue and how the House of Commons is adapting to the increasing number of younger women in the House.


Babies in the House



Parliamentary tradition holds that anyone not a Member or an officer of Parliament is a ‘stranger’ in the House of Common, in other words, not really supposed to be there. Today a convention is taking hold that would have babies and young children exempt.

In 1980 Liberal MP Sheila Copps was the first woman to bring her baby into Parliament, including the Members Lobby behind the curtains of the House of Commons. As the number of female MPs has risen, so too has the presence of young children on the Hill. In the late 1990s, Nova Scotia NDP member Michelle Dockrill (pictured below right) became the first woman to bring a baby into the Commons Chamber proper, holding her son as she stood for a vote (LeBlanc, 2012). After the 2015 elections babies have become even more ubiquitous. For example, NDP member Christine Moore brings her infant daughter into the Commons, NDP MP Niki Ashton has set up her office to accommodate new born twins, BQ MPs Xavier Barsalou-Duval and Marilene Gill are the first sitting MPs to have a child together, and Minister for Democratic Institutions, Karina Gould, is the first sitting federal minister to give birth while in office (Aiello, 2018, Stone, 2018). 



Without provision for parental leave or substantive medical leave and limited on-site day-care, MPs who are new parents, particularly breastfeeding mothers, have little choice but to bring their babies to work and that includes the Commons Chamber. The House, for the most part, has adapted to the presence of the little ‘strangers.’ There has been the odd hiccup. For instance, in February 2012, NDP MP Sana Hassaina (pictured below, source Ottawa Citizen) understood the Speaker had ordered her to remove her 3-month-old son from the chamber. It turned out that the Speaker had actually requested that she and members taking photos of the mother and child return to their seats as “there are strict rules about using a camera in the House.” “Miss Hassaina said she had received guarantees that she could bring her son to the House again if ever her husband was not there to take care of him” (Leblanc, 2012). The Parliamentary Committee overseeing House rules has recommended formal recognition be given to what is now a fairly common occurrence and it would appear a new parliamentary convention. 





Daniel Leblanc. 2012. Babies Welcome in the House of Commons After All. Globe and Mail. 8 February 2012. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/babies-welcome-in-the-house-of-commons-after-all/article546622/


Rachel Aiello. 2018. Babies in the House No Parental Leave for MPs. CTV News. 18 January, 2018. https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/babies-in-the-house-no-parental-leave-for-mps-1.3764923

Laura Stone. 2018. Karina Gould hopes becoming become Canadas first Cabinet Minister to give birth while in office will set precedent. Globe and Mail. 5 January, 2018.  https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/karina-gould-set-to-become-canadasfirst-cabinet-minister-to-give-birth-while-in-office/article37516244/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Women Mayors in Ontario

 Recently, I've been up-dating the information on women councillors in Ontario. The following table lists the women elected Mayors in the municipal elections held in October 2022. The list is organized in order of descending population of the municipality. It notes whether the Mayor is an incumbent or newly elected, while new position indicates that the Mayor is new to the position, but was an already incumbent member of council.  Of the 417 Ontario Councils which held elections, 101 are now led by women. (There maybe a few I've missed, as I have not included Reeves.) Mayor Incumbent or New Municipality Pop Acclaimed Bonnie Crombie incumbent Mississauga 717,961 Andrea Horwath new Hamilton 569,353 Marianne Meed Ward incumbent Burlington 186,948 Elizabeth Roy new position ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The State of Gender Parity in 2019

On December 16, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its Global Gender Index for 2020 based on 2019 country performance. Canada has dropped 3 places in the ranking since the last report a year ago.  Since 2006 the WEF has produced annual reports on the progress made toward gender equality using benchmarks based on four thematic dimensions: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. In the latest edition of Women, Politics and Public Policy: The political struggles of Canadian women, (Newman, White and Findlay, 2020, p. 389) we had this to say of the 2017 report:  According to the 2017 report, no country has fully closed its gender gap; four of the five Nordic countries, Rwanda (4th), and Nicaragua (6th) have closed more than 80 per cent of their gaps. And Canada? Canada does not crack the top ten; it ranks 16th out of 144 countries, which is 2 points lower than its first ranking in 2006. This d...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is Low Voter Turnout Actually A Good Thing?

 [It's a provocative position. I hope my answer is a bit more nuanced. Thinking with a pen, so the views are my own and likely to change as I think about it a bit more.] The big talking point regarding yesterday's municipal election in London is the free fall debacle in voter turnout. Only 25.5% of eligible voters cast a ballot, a significant plunge from the 40% turnout in 2018 (the BRT election) and from the 2014 high of 43% (the get rid of Fontana and the Fontana 8 election).  This low turnout is seen as the reason for the rather surprising outcomes in some of the words, namely the defeat of three "incumbents."* Incumbents are considered safe bets because they have name recognition and represent the status quo for voters. Generally, the mass of voters in municipal election have little to guide their votes other than name recognition and a desire not to change things up. However, when that "mass" of voters decides not to show up, that generalized support fo...
Post a Comment
Read more