Canada’s Parliaments: Hybrid Places Lead to Gender Sensitive Spaces

COVID-19 has disrupted the way Canada’s parliamentary institutions traditionally operate. Arguments against modernising parliamentary practices to include both in-person and remote voting have been challenged. Transitioning away from face-to-face participation toward a hybrid model is one of many examples where we have seen the use of technology facilitate unprecedented institutional transformation in Canada’s national parliament and in many, but not all, provincial legislative assemblies. Looking to the feminist institutionalist approach, hybridity is increasing the gender and diversity sensitivity of legislatures by creating more inclusive parliaments where elected members and legislative staff who identify as women or as belonging to another equity deserving group can more fully participate in their workplaces. Almost two years into the pandemic some parliaments are reverting to in-person proceedings while others are tentatively continuing with more restrictive forms of hybridity. In 2020, I began exploring these themes in the report I authored for the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians (CWP) - Canadian Region, ‘Assessing Gender and Diversity Sensitivity at the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia’. Continuing with this, I am drawing on the report’s method to assess gender sensitivity during pandemic times in Canada’s national and provincial parliaments. Using original survey and interview data with Canada’s national and provincial members who have worked in both pre- and pandemic parliaments, I explore levels of support for face-to face and hybrid parliaments, arguing women members are more supportive of hybridity than men members. Further, I explore if returning fully face-to-face will negatively influence women legislators’ decision to seek re-election to a greater degree than men’s decision to reoffer. Doing so provides additional insight into why hybrid parliamentary reforms, going forward, should be considered permanent operational features of democratic institutions seeking to become more gender and diversity sensitive.