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When Andy Yan looks at the chaotic civic election landscape, with its many independents following the collapse of long-standing parties and so many incumbents packing it in, he’s not surprised.

“It’s because the city has changed so much,” says Yan, the director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program.

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He’s not talking about bricks and mortar. Yan is talking about citizens and how the civic parties and the civic politicians look nothing like the population.

At 51 per cent of the population, female representation in politics has never measured up to that. It surprised Yan. But for women, this is nothing new.

Fewer than a third of B.C.’s current mayors are women, according to Equal Voice. It doesn’t have statistics on the percentage of female councillors.

Photo by Dan Janisse / VSUNwp

There are anomalies. During her three terms as Surrey’s mayor, Dianne Watts led councils that had a majority of women, as does the current council under Mayor Linda Hepner. At first, those female-dominated councils got a lot of media coverage, which is funny since the male-dominated ones are rarely written about in those terms.