Article content

VICTORIA — The B.C. NDP continues to wrestle with confusion caused by strict gender equity rules for its political candidates.

Leader John Horgan said Wednesday that retiring male MLAs, like the Cowichan Valley’s Bill Routley, do not have to be replaced by female candidates.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or B.C. NDP wrestles with gender equity rules for candidates Back to video

“It does have to be a woman if a woman (MLA) steps down,” said Horgan. “Bill Routley, for example … it doesn’t have to be a woman there.”

The statement at first appeared to be at odds with the NDP’s gender policy, which stipulates that any departing NDP MLA must be replaced by a woman or “equity-seeking candidate”. Horgan’s office later clarified he was trying to say that a male candidate could meet the “equity-seeking” provisions, if that man was from a racial minority group, First Nation or the LGBTQ community, for example.

The B.C. NDP’s strict gender policy has been passed by the party membership at previous annual conventions, with the intent to boost the number of female and minority MLAs in the party’s caucus. Currently, 43 per cent of the 35 NDP MLAs are female.