Getting Rid of Men

Back in 1997, during Mayor Susan Thompson's reign, City Hall had hired George Cuff, who hailed from Edmonton, to look at ways to further deepen Unicity government here. At the time, there was a major campaign through the press to replace the five City Commissioners, who were all Men, with one CAO at City Hall.

The way this concept was sold was we were constantly told that Edmonton City Hall had recently replaced its Commissioners with a CAO, thereby saving costs. Enacting this required an amendment to the City of Winnipeg Act, which was put into action on October 29, 1997.

However, the first Winnipeg CAO was a woman, Anita Stenning, who after quitting that position, went on to CEO of CentreVenture, which is in charge of getting a hold of property that is vacant and finding new uses for them.

TVOntario's Agenda had a program topic about Women in Politics, and whether there should be more women encouraged to enter that field.

One of the panelists said because women are finding it hard to break through the so-called "glass ceiling" in politics, but doing the job of CAO is easier because it is a managerial job and not an elected position.

About halfway through the program, one of the panelists mentions that 54% of CAOs in Canada are women!

I wonder whether the Cuff Report was written to get rid of some Men in civic administration.

See also:

Frontier Centre for Public Policy - Cuff Report: Tricky Treat?