As Canadians prepare to make their fourth trip to the ballot box in seven years, the leaders of the major parties have hit the hustings armed with a slew of campaign promises that beg the question: Are they vying for women's votes?
Poll numbers ahead of the election call showed the Conservatives with a sizable ten-point lead over their closest competition, and they haven't moved much since. Given that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives need to add a mere dozen seats to those they had before the writ dropped, there can be little doubt he is determined to seize what appears to be his best chance so far at winning a majority government.
But even though there are a total of 308 seats in the House of Commons, far fewer than that -- a couple dozen by most counts -- are considered up for grabs.
That's why the major party leaders are paying special attention to ridings that were won or lost on narrow margins last time in the Montreal and Quebec City areas, for example, as well as in the lower B.C. mainland, the Greater Toronto Area and the nearby cities of Guelph, Kitchener, Waterloo and London.
Combined with the prospect raised by national polls that suggest even fewer Canadians plan to hit the polls on May 2 than they did in 2008, when the turnout bar dropped to a record low of less than 60 per cent, the major parties have had to narrowly focus on the votes that matter.
Before the election call, polls showed more women than men were undecided. And that trend has remained consistent through the opening weeks of the campaign.
By the middle of the second week, the results of a national Nanos poll conducted for CTV and The Globe and Mail showed a total of 18 per cent of voters were undecided. Broken down by gender, however, 15.5 per cent of men were yet to choose, compared with 21 per cent of women who had yet to make up their minds.
When pollster Nik Nanos breaks down the numbers by gender, it becomes clear why women's votes matter. Overall, 18 per cent of voters were undecided. Among men, however, 15.5 per cent were undecided, while 21 per cent of women were yet to choose.
Looking at the ballot numbers by gender, support for the Conservatives among men was at 43.6 per cent, compared with 29.0 per cent for the Liberals. On the other hand, 35.6 per cent of women favoured the Tories compared to 30.7 per cent for the Liberals.
"The Liberals are much more competitive among women than they are among men," Nanos told CTV.ca in a telephone interview.
That means if the Conservatives are serious about forming a majority, that's where they'll have to snatch votes from the Liberals. And given that the Liberals used to enjoy a 20 per cent margin among women voters during the Chretien and Trudeau eras, narrowing that gap appears within the Conservatives' grasp.
The strategy of targeting very specific groups of voters was laid bare in the weeks before the election call, in a leaked Conservative Party plan to target "ethnic community" voters in a select handful of ridings.
And, as the campaign got underway, Harper quickly made clear who else outside his party's traditional support base he'd like to bring into the Tory camp.
Case in point: Harper's first major campaign announcement focused on promising a scheme for families with children under the age of 18 to divide their income for tax purposes.
Pundits agreed that pledge -- alongside promised tax credits for family caregivers and the doubling of tax credit for kids' fitness programs -- were aimed squarely at families, and more specifically at the growing numbers of women who balance a professional career with family life.
Indeed, the Liberals and the NDP have aimed some of their highest-profile pledges at the same target. The Grits, for example, are touting promises of more money for post-secondary education and child care, as well as support measures for family caregivers.
Weighing policy versus performance
But Nanos says, beyond the platform, the tone of the Conservative campaign is equally geared to appeal to women. Harper's constant framing of the election as a choice between the stability of continued Conservative government versus the instability of a "reckless Liberal coalition" is a case in point.
"The prime minister's messages contrasting stability and instability are significant," Nanos said, because "messaging like that would likely have appeal to women."
Conventional wisdom is that women voters tend to lean left of centre, and focus more on so-called soft issues such as healthcare and education. But, when compared with male voters, Nanos says women also tend to bring a different decision-making rationale to the ballot box.
"There tends to be marginally more undecided women than men, and I think a lot of that is many women look at their vote decision in the frame of risk," he said, describing women as "very pragmatic voters."
With that particular frame of mind, they tend to watch what's happening in the campaign as much for the candidates' conduct as for their policies.
Then, on voting day a combination of factors including policy and personality of the leaders inform a kind of "risk evaluation."
Recognizing the pitfalls of drawing such broad generalizations about a group of voters that actually comprises a numerical majority of the general population, the director of Equal Voice, a non-partisan group dedicated to increasing women's participation in politics, agrees.
"I think given the life experience of many women, especially as mothers, I think they're evaluating the worst case and best case scenarios," Equal Voice director Nancy Peckford told CTV.ca.
"They are bringing a more nuanced perspective of what the outcome will mean from the vantage point of what it suggests for their communities directly, for their kids and for their families."
Besides policies geared to their needs, Peckford suggests that female voters might be even more energized if they saw themselves reflected on the slate.
"You need a critical mass of women in government -- and that number is one-third women -- in order to meaningfully impact political culture and policy outcomes," Peckford said.
But are women represented in government?
According to an ongoing analysis of the major parties' slates of female candidates by Equal Voice, they're all close.
The NDP, for example, leads the pack with a record slate of 40 female candidates, while the Liberals, Bloc Quebecois and Green Party are all fielding at least 30 women. The Tories lag just behind with a roster of 25 female candidates.
Although Peckford says "any improvement (in the numbers of women candidates) is good news from our perspective," she notes the distinction between nominating women to run in an election and actually having them voted into office.
After all, even though it's been 90 years since the first woman was elected to the House of Commons, at dissolution women held just 68 of 308 seats, or 22 per cent of the Parliament.
According to a study by the Switzerland-based Inter-Parliamentary Union, that ranks Canada 52nd in the world behind some unlikely nations including Afghanistan and Rwanda.
"We've got 51 other countries representing a range of democracies and approaches and they've all figured out how to do it better than Canada," Peckford said, noting that countries around the world developing their own democratic systems are incorporating female participation.
Neither have women enjoyed much profile on the campaign trail. The leaders of the three major parties -- all of whom have dominated the campaign so far -- are undeniably male.
Nanos doesn't believe the low profile of women on the hustings will be a deciding factor, however. Nor does he necessarily expect the issues to sway women's votes on election day.
Instead, he says the way candidates navigate their "campaign journey" may prove to be the biggest factor.
Recalling the 1995 Ontario provincial election, Nanos said polling showed Conservative Party leader Mike Harris' "Common Sense Revolution" didn't sit well with women voters at the time.
But when decision time arrived, Nanos said votes from women helped push the Mike Harris Tories into majority territory, "because he was perceived as being consistent and less risky than (Liberal leader) Lyn McLeod -- even though she probably had policies that better aligned with female voters."
