this argument is rooted in the idea that ensuring gender parity necessarily implies that unqualified people will be put into cabinet. i’m using that language for the reason that the idea of “most qualified” is impossible to define. for each portfolio, you’re going to have a handful of qualified people and it’s never going to be clear which is one is best qualified, or even to convincingly define why one is better qualified than the next.

that said, you have to understand the history of this. it goes back to the chretien years, where carolyn bennett was on the brink of organizing a caucus revolt over the lack of female representation in cabinet – and this is one of the reasons (there are a couple of others) why it’s clear that she’s really a lock on a cabinet position, despite some media suggesting otherwise. she won this argument. but, here’s the twist: did chretien have the advantage of having sufficiently many qualified women to allow for gender parity? it’s questionable. not clearly false, but questionable. it is, however, clear that he didn’t have a sufficient number of women with cabinet experience, but this is of course self-perpetuating.

that was twenty years ago, and it’s less that social attitudes have changed dramatically since then and more that a generation of women raised with different opportunities has presented a different caucus.

of the 50 women that have been elected, it’s not going to be hard to find plenty that have no business being discussed as potential cabinet material. but, it’s likewise not hard to find 14 that are no less qualified than any male alternative.

one could tenuously argue that this is somewhat unfair to qualified male mps and take the perspective that, rather than strict parity, it should be proportional to the number of elected female mps. but, the idea is for the cabinet to be representative of the general public, rather than representative of the caucus. further, it’s ignoring the fact that women remain underrepresented in parliament. part of the reasoning underlying this is to act as an incentive for greater female involvement.

but, the idea that gender parity is going to put unqualified people in cabinet? it may have been true in 1995, but it’s simply disingenuous in 2015.

www.therebel.media/_trudeau_getting_ready_to_unveil_his_cabinet_based