Shannon Phillips and the toll of a political career

A note to subscribers: Yes, I know. Newsletter posts have slowed to a trickle over the past several weeks. I’ve been accosted by loyal subscribers on social media and the LRT platform, wondering what’s going on. I can’t blame it on a giant infrastructure failure. I’ve just been busy writing a conference paper and working on another project. And, I’ll confess, I’ve been feeling quite weary about Alberta politics. When I peek at social media, the polarized discourse is very discouraging. And that brings us to the subject of today’s post: Shannon Phillips's decision to leave politics.

The Toll of a Political Career

I spent a good chunk of my academic career studying ‘women in politics’ — the barriers that keep women from running for office and from winning party nominations, and the impact they might have once they are elected.

Those were optimistic times: barriers would be eliminated, women would take their rightful place in political life, and public policy would be better. What I - and others - didn’t see coming was the backlash that these women would experience. The study of women in politics now is less about understanding the intricacies of nomination contests and more about documenting and theorizing the gender-based violence women in politics experience.

This affects women across the political spectrum, but is particularly intense for those who have the audacity not just to be women in positions of authority, but also to challenge the status quo. It’s not a coincidence, I suspect, that both Catherine McKenna (former environment minister in the Trudeau government) and Shannon Phillips (former environment minister in the Notley government) have decided to leave the political arena after years of harassment and threats of violence to them and their families.

Girls and women are socialized to play by the rules. We’re offered an implicit deal that if we do what we are supposed to do, the system will reward us, or at least look out for us. Shannon Phillips isn’t the first woman to discover that the system doesn’t share that understanding. But I can’t imagine a clearer message from the system that ‘you’re on your own’ than the decision of Crown prosecutors not to pursue charges against the Lethbridge police officers who surveilled her.

Ask any woman who has been in a position of authority or visibility if they have an experience of the system shrugging its shoulders and reassuring them that they probably aren’t at risk of physical violence from that creepy cyber-stalker/emailer/disgruntled former employee. They’ll have one. Or more.

And so, Shannon Phillips has done the only reasonable thing she could do under the circumstances: leave politics and step out of the public eye. It’s Alberta’s loss that her talent and experience won’t be in the legislature any more. And it’s a win for the guys who harass and intimidate. As long as the system lets them get away with it, they will keep winning.

Who will be next? My best guess is Calgary mayor Jyoti Gondek. The vitriol she is experiencing on social media, egged on by the columnists, would be difficult to tolerate.

To Shannon Phillips: thank you for your service. You’ve contributed a lot to your province and your party. And you deserved better treatment than you got.

Bonus Feature: Should Nenshi Run in Lethbridge West?

Excellent question! On one hand, it’s a seat and a way into the legislature. It’s probably a safe-ish seat: Phillips won it by over 10 percentage points in 2023. It would let Nenshi claim that he’s taking the first step for the party to win seats in the smaller cities, which will be essential to the party’s ability to form government.

On the other hand, if Nenshi runs in Lethbridge West, he crowds out a candidate who could bring authentic little-city knowledge to the caucus. He becomes his own south-Alberta lieutenant, which isn’t ideal. The seat is safe-ish; there’s some risk involved and losing a by-election would not be a great move for a new leader.