Gendered Ministerial Exits in Canada: Comparing the Harper and Trudeau Cabinets

Canada’s first gender-parity cabinet made headlines in 2015, and it was led by Canada’s first self-proclaimed feminist prime minister, Justin Trudeau. This was a significant change from the previous cabinet under Stephen Harper, where women made up about one quarter of ministers. While this increase in the descriptive representation of women in Canada’s executive was remarkable, it remains unclear whether women’s political careers flourished or flatlined in the gender quota context. Indeed, the high-profile exits of several of Trudeau’s women ministers seemed to signal that women’s ministerial careers may progress quite differently from those of their men counterparts. This paper compares the political careers of women in the Trudeau and Harper cabinets, examining: 1) whether women occupied positions of power or influence in the Trudeau and Harper cabinets, 2) the tenure length of women and men cabinet ministers in both cabinets, and 3) the gendered circumstances of their departures (including in the face of high levels of harassment and abuse). Throughout the paper, we argue that women’s exits from cabinets matter deeply to women’s descriptive and substantive representation in government, and that the rates of attrition and circumstances surrounding their exits affect policymaking and governance at the highest offices of political power. Understanding women’s exits from cabinet can tell us more about the trajectory of women’s careers and whether appointment quotas are an effective tool for improving women’s retention in Canada’s executive.