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A cartoon by Dan Hammond in the March 4 issue of the Wellington Advertiser makes reference to the Rural Ontario Institute’s latest report, the Rural Municipal Councillor Profile. While this cartoon is of course tongue-in-cheek, it also supports the principle objective of this overall initiative, to inspire discussion on the important issue of rural municipal leadership succession.

This cartoon has picked up on an important reality of this report – it is no surprise to anyone that councillors across the province are older and more predominantly white men.
In developing this initiative, it has never been our intention to rest on this observation alone. This report looks beyond this initial point of shared understanding, striving to better understand the nuances of these observations. Why do these trends exist, and are they healthy for our municipal political system?

This report looks to inspire conversations around current issues so that we may collectively work towards improvements – improvements we have heard first-hand from councillors, mayors and municipal staff across the province, are much needed.

At the root of all these discussions lie some fundamental questions: are we seeing participation in municipal politics from a diverse talent pool; are there sufficient candidates to foster a healthy, competitive environment in local elections; and how are candidates preparing themselves for their positions on Council?

For example, when we see only 25% elected women in municipal councillor roles across the province and only 23% female candidates, there are certainly opportunities for unlocking this vast pool of highly qualified and talented women to run for future municipal leadership roles.

When we come to understand the statistics and stories shared by all municipal councillors, the real question we should all be asking is what’s next? Where are there opportunities for action? Today we are faced with a collective opportunity for improvement.

Rebecca Johnson, a councillor in Thunder Bay and co-chair of the group “Women In Politics” has seen the same results and has shared some further thoughts from her perspective.

“It is 2016. Women make up 50% of the total population and should make up 50% of all levels of government. And when we recognize these great imbalances that exist in our government, we recognize an opportunity to take action. Thunder Bay “Women in Politics” was formed in 2013 to address this very issue, and has seen success.  In the 2014 municipal election, our City Council had more women running than ever before, and our council composition increased by one woman.  In the federal election we had more women running in the three Northwestern Ontario ridings and elected one woman. Government elected officials should represent our diverse community of peoples, by gender, ethnic origin, colour, age, disability, race, creed, family status.”

This report has been clear from the outset that it strives to engage a dialogue around these common challenges facing municipal leaders.  There is a great opportunity for the Wellington Advertiser to join in this conversation - they would be a tremendous partner in facilitating the discussion around strategies to address the ongoing challenges and opportunities of rural municipal leadership succession.

The full report is available here.

The associated infographic is available here.