Nova Scotia political parties seek greater diversity as candidate slates take shape

Whenever the next provincial election is called, more than half of the Nova Scotia NDP slate of candidates will be women or gender diverse.

As of Tuesday, the party has 43 of 55 candidates nominated or acclaimed, 28 of whom are women or gender diverse.NDP Leader Gary Burrill said the party has worked toward the goal for some time.

"It's the culmination of literally generations of dedication to this purpose," said Burrill.

The current NDP caucus has five MLAs, all of whom are women except for Burrill. He believes that difference in perspective helps inform the issues the party advances and the perspectives they bring to topics including education, child care, health care and care for the elderly.

"These are areas where society's work has largely been carried out by women for generations and these are areas that are at the centre of our concern," he said.

"And I know when I visit door to door and talk about our work and our purposes, people are always very interested to talk about the fact that there is a caucus in Nova Scotia that's made up of all women but one and the significance of that."

Candidates to reflect all Nova Scotians

The NDP isn't the only party that's focused its efforts on equity and diversity in recruiting candidates.

The Progressive Conservatives have nominated 47 candidates to date, 25 of whom are women or from a diverse background.

The party's campaign co-chair, Tara Miller, said Tim Houston called for a committee to focus on diverse communities following his election as leader in 2018.

"He was committed to ensuring that the candidates who would move forward in the next campaign would reflect all Nova Scotians, and the only way to do that is if you have more women and more people of a diverse background," she said.

Miller said candidate search committees also engaged in unconscious bias training.

"You need to be purposeful to some extent, but the quality of the candidates that have come forward as a result of all those initiatives, I think, just reflect the quality of the candidates and who they are."

Equity 'a huge concern'

Of the 44 nominated candidates for the Nova Scotia Liberal Party, 20 are women. Like the other parties, the Liberals are running candidates from a variety of diverse and under-represented backgrounds, includinga candidate who is Mi'kmaw.

Party spokesperson Micah Richardson said the Liberals have been active in reaching out to people with a variety ofbackgrounds as they searched for candidates.

"Equity was absolutely a huge concern for us because [Premier] Iain [Rankin] really believes in equity and diverse backgrounds," he said.

Although their parties will havedifferences on the campaign trail, Burrill, Miller and Richardson agree that having a more representativeslate of candidates is important for voters as theydecide whothey want as their voice at Province House.

"I think people want to see themselves reflected in their representation in government, and if it is a slate of candidates that are all, for example, male and white, then they're not reflected," said Miller.

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