Manitoba·NewWomen need better representation in municipal politics, says Tracy Baker, a Brandon businesswoman and co-founder of Her Seat at the Table, an organization seeking to help potential candidates who might not know all that is involved. Her Seat at the Table will offer advice to potential candidates unsure of what’s involvedMichele McDougall · CBC News · Posted: Nov 30, 2025 7:00 AM EST | Last Updated: 3 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 5 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Michelle Budiwski says her campaign signs were vandalized with misogynistic slurs and drawings of genitalia when she ran for the Liberals in Spruce Woods in the 2023 provincial election. (Michele McDougall/CBC)There needs to be better representation of women in municipal politics, says a Brandon businesswoman who co-founded an organization to boost potential candidates. Her Seat at the Table is an initiative to support women who are thinking about running for city council but are unsure of how to get there, says Tracy Baker, a certified financial planner in Brandon.The goal, she says, is to have more women on the ballot for fall 2026 and four years after that.”Having a gender-diverse council is important as women and men bring different things to the table — and because right now the scale is tipped one way,” Baker said. “We just want to balance that.”In Brandon, only one of 11 seats on city council is held by a woman, and only 10 women have been elected in the last 45 years. On two of those occasions, three women served on council at the same time.Only one woman has sat in the mayor’s chair in all of Wheat City’s history: Shari Decter Hirst served from 2010 until her defeat in 2014.Baker and other members of the organizing committee are hosting an open house on Thursday evening in Brandon when they will be prepared to offer guidance and encouragement, as well as answer questions about what’s required to run and then serve.Tracy Baker co-founded Her Seat at the Table, a Brandon group looking for women to run for city council in next year’s municipal election. (Submitted by Tracy Baker)She has already fielded a few inquiries.”The most common concern was the amount of extra time that everyone has to tack on to their day, their week, their months to be a city councillor,” Baker said.”And for a lot of people, men or women … they’re working, so that is an extra, you know, probably 10 to 20 hours a week that has to be added on. And so that was a concern and coming up with some solutions to that is difficult,” she said.Time management is just one of the issues women face when they sign up to run for political office, says Michelle Budiwski.Budiwski, a Manitoba Liberal candidate for the Spruce Woods riding in 2023’s provincial election, says her campaign signs were constantly being vandalized with misogynistic slurs.”There was genitalia drawings, there was … sexualized and gendered names, you know, a lot of the C-word, that type of thing,” Budiwski said.”I was doing a phone campaign and I had one man on the telephone tell me the only way he would ever vote for a woman is if she was hot and horny.”Though Budiwski lost to Grant Jackson, she says she still experiences abuse online, and is calling on political leaders to create safe spaces much as businesses and organizations have done.”Someone needs to put an end to it, and no one is stepping up to put an end to it,” Budiwski said.The Association of Manitoba Municipalities is aware that inappropriate online comments toward municipal officials have been “escalating,” said executive director Denys Volkov.Volkov told the CBC that his association has created a toolkit with more than 100 practical suggestions to help elected officials and councils respond to personal attacks.”Just in the last few years we’ve just seen a number of incidents here in our province specifically targeting municipal officials,” Volkov said.Mayor cites threatsVolkov cited examples of threats against staff and officials in the rural municipalities of Alexander and Taché.On Nov. 5, a grader was hit with a bullet in Alexander, and in October politicians from Taché were depicted hanged from a gallows.”So this is just escalating and we sort of predicted that might happen. So we wanted to put a toolkit together … before the next municipal election.”The toolkit will be released Dec. 9 at a global summit in Toronto when world leaders from all levels of government and social agencies will gather to address how to fight rising tides of hate and foster more resilient and inclusive cities.Volkov was hesitant to share specifics about the toolkit in advance of the summit, but says there will be a specific segment on gender and people of colour.”That’s why we sort of separated it … because in addition to all the harassment that municipal officials face, if you are a woman you face even more harassment from some individuals,” Volkov said.Kathy Valentino, president of the Association of Manitoba Municipalities, will also be in Toronto when the toolkit is unveiled.She said she hopes it will help support those who are being harassed, adding the hatred and harassment that’s gone beyond the “keyboard warrior” is “scary.”Nevertheless, Valentino maintains the political arena needs more women.”We do it because we really do think still that you’re going to make a difference,” Valentino said.”We have to stand up for ourselves and … make decisions that we feel is right for our municipality and people,” she said. “So that’s why I think women should get involved. They can … look at things through a different lens.”ABOUT THE AUTHOR Michele McDougall is a news reporter at CBC Manitoba based in Brandon. She previously worked at the Brandon Sun covering health stories in western Manitoba.
Group wants to help more women get elected to city governments in western Manitoba
