International Women’s Day is upon us and what better way to celebrate than to highlight an ever-expanding network of women who are leaders in their respective communities, making inroads to support one another through the unique challenges that come with being a woman in municipal politics.
Officially bringing these women together is the Northern Ontario Women’s (NOW) caucus, initially conceived by Mayor Cheryl Fort of Hornepayne and Mayor Michelle Boileau of Timmins.
Fort said the whole idea really started to gain traction around two years ago.
“Michelle and I were talking together and just discussing some of the issues we're facing as mayors – and how we could bring about good change for our communities,” she said.
“In history, when settlement happened in the north, when newcomers were coming, they came to the north to settle for the resource industry. It was primarily an attraction for men back in the day and we'd like to make it attractive to women too. I don’t think there’s been a full force effort that way.”
Fort highlighted the fact she’s been a northerner her entire life, stating she’s all too familiar with the disparities of being a woman who lives in the north – and she also acknowledged the challenges faced by women in Southern Ontario.
But it was the combined perspectives of Fort and Boileau which led to their realization that a platform or network was needed between women in municipal leadership across the northern region, specifically.
A platform that could amplify women’s voices in the north and allow them to work with the federal and provincial governments to bring about change for Northern Ontario.
Boileau said her desire to form the NOW Caucus arose around the time she was gearing up to run for the mayoral office.
“I had expressed some disappointment with our city CAO that there weren’t more women who had been elected to council because I had the idea that, should I be elected mayor, I would want to create a women's caucus within our municipal council and just meet with the other female councillors semi-regularly and talk about what we're doing and what we're trying to move forward,” she said.
At the time, there was only one other woman elected to council in Timmins.
After some time passed, Boileau and Fort connected at a conference and Boileau relayed the experience she’d had pitching a potential women’s caucus.
“I was sharing that story and . . . she suggested, well, why just stay within your community? Why not expand that to Northern Ontario and other woman mayors? And that's how we kind of had this idea of getting together as women politicians in Northern Ontario,” she said.
The initial idea was to bring together mayors and councillors but as Boileau’s assistant compiled a list it became clear that it would be best to start with mayors and go from there.
“She came into my office one day and said, are you sure you want me to include councillors too? I asked her why, and she said: ‘well, I'm already at 40 women mayors and there's over 100 councillors,’” Boileau said.
“I was surprised to see that the experience in Timmins wasn't necessarily the same elsewhere and that a lot of women were actually being elected to council across Northern Ontario. I mean, proportionally, maybe not a lot but still more than I had expected.
“And so, for the initial meeting – in the first few meetings – we had decided to kind of send the invitation out to the women mayors.”
That first meeting between NOW Caucus members was held last March.
Boileau described the experience as “moving.”
“We had over 20 women on screen on a Zoom call and everyone was just smiling ear-to-ear. We had scheduled an hour – we went on for an hour and a half – and we just kept smiling. It didn't stop. It was obvious throughout that meeting that this was something that was both wanted and needed,” she said.
She observed differences in the perspective of women leaders and gender parity in more rural communities compared to the experience of a woman such as herself, working in a bigger city centre like Timmins.
“I thought it was interesting and I think it informs what we're hoping to do with the NOW Caucus. Whereas I was talking about the need or the desire to have a bit of a support network, being a woman politician in Northern Ontario, Cheryl was really coming at it from wanting to better the experience of women in her community, being a smaller, more isolated community that was established as a labour camp,” she said.
Fort added that several meetings followed their first initial meeting and a working group was established – including Fort herself, Mayor Melanie Pilon of Wawa and Mayor Johanne Baril of Rita-Harty – to iron out the NOW Caucus’s terms of reference.
The Caucus most recently met at the ROMA Conference in February where they finalized their terms of reference.
“We want to move forward, we want to legitimize the positions and get this activated,” Fort said.
“This is about creating some resources for mentoring . . . there are thankfully some councils now that are fully women, which is great, but in some councils you're the only woman on a council and it can feel very isolating and lonely and so that kind of support too – so that you have a network of people.
“I know for myself, I had a really great network when I first became a councillor and I was one of those councillors that sat on an all-male council. And, thankfully, after the first conference I went to in Thunder Bay, I was able to meet some other women that were elected leaders and understood that we have some challenges that are unique to us.”
In terms of where they’d like to see the NOW Caucus go from here, both Fort and Boileau relayed their enthusiasm about the continued growth of the group and making other women in politics across the region aware of what they’re doing.
“Moving into the future, I’d love to see this be completely embraced as a safe place for women to engage and highlight some of the concerns coming from their communities. I really hope to see it only continue to grow,” Fort said.
“I think one of my hopes for the NOW Caucus is to see it become a resource for women who aspire to positions of leadership in Northern Ontario,” Boileau said.
“We've talked about wanting to be able to host a conference where we can invite women mayors and councillors and administrators – to include CAOs and treasurers and those positions of leadership within the municipality – to invite everyone to get together to resource ourselves, to provide professional development workshops and tools that we would need.”
Boileau added that, as the NOW Caucus continues to grow, they hope to also provide input to organizations and the federal and provincial governments regarding policies that effect women.
“I think we really want to build ourselves up to a point where we're providing resources to other women, but we're also being sought after for insight by other levels of government or other organizations and agencies for our perspective on policy that would apply to women and the female experience in our communities – wanting to do advocacy and policy advising where possible,” she said.
“I think that there are a lot of commonalities between our municipalities across Northern Ontario – a lot of differences too – but still a lot of commonalities that differ from Southern Ontario. I think it's really exciting that we're getting this opportunity to connect among all of Northern Ontario.”
