In this week’s story, former cabinet minister, and Truro-Bible Hill MLA, Eleanor Norrie, remembers what she describes as the all-too-frequent experience of showing up as a woman when the people she was scheduled to meet were waiting for a man.

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Episode Transcript

Where’s the minister?

Eleanor Norrie: I was part of the community, I was part of the we. Over there, those people that are elected, they are ‘they’. So it’s the ‘we’ and then ‘they’.

The day after I was elected, the community doesn’t treat you as part of the ‘we’ anymore, you’re the ‘they.’ So you become they. You become somebody that either they want to be with, or attack. You’re separate apart from the community, it’s just what happens.

Then on top of that, when you’re a woman, I call it the ‘she-they.’

Mark Coffin: You’re listening to On the Record, Off Script – a podcast documentary project based on conversations we’ve had with former Nova Scotia MLAs. My name is Mark Coffin, and I’m one of the hosts of the podcast.  

Each week, we dig into one small piece of politics, from the perspective of people who served in the Nova Scotia legislature.

What makes these conversations worth listening in on has less to do with what we talked about and more to do with when we talked about it.

These conversations happened when, for the most part, the MLAs we spoke with had no plans on returning to elected office. They’d reflected on their time in public office, and weren’t concerned about getting re-elected.

It’s the last week of October of 2016.  We are  putting the finishing touches on the first set of full episodes, which we’ll begin releasing in a few weeks.

Until then, here is our second ‘prepisode.”

‘Prepisodes’ are short stories, and anecdotes that captivated us, kept us entertained or underscored an important reality about life in politics.  

This week’s story comes from Eleanor Norrie.

Eleanor Norrie: I remember going to visit the legislature when I was in high school, it was just a room full of white, suited men. I think I was in grade 11 or 12 at that time, and it was something that I would never–a young woman would never dream of ever finding herself sitting down there. I remember looking down and being in awe of it and it just never crossed my mind that gee I’d like to do that someday because it was just not a possibility. I was a school teacher prior to being married, and I was pretty well a stay at home mom if you will.

Mark Coffin: Eleanor Norrie was elected in 1993 and served for just one term.

She sat in Premier John Savage’s Cabinet as Minister of the Civil Service, and was then shuffled to oversee the department of Housing and Consumer Affairs, and later, served as Minister of Natural Resources – all of that in just four years.

Eleanor Norrie: I have a saying. I was part of the community, I was part of the we. Over there, those people that are elected, they are ‘they’. So it’s the ‘we’ and then ‘they’.

The day after I was elected, the community doesn’t treat you as part of the ‘we’ anymore, you’re the ‘they.’ So you become they. You become somebody that either they want to be with, or attack. You’re separate apart from the community, it’s just what happens.

Then on top of that, when you’re a woman, I call it the ‘she-they.’  Then not only are you ‘they’ in government, you’re a woman in government. People have a hard time, or people did have a hard time accepting that, especially in cabinet.

Mark Coffin: In this week’s story, Eleanor tells us about what she described as the all-too-common experience of showing up as a woman when the people she was scheduled to meet were waiting for a man.

Eleanor Norrie: I was minister of sport and recreation, the house was sitting, and there was a major bond spiel. I think it had been taking place at the Mayflower Curling Rink, and they invited me to come as the opening [speaker].

The house was sitting, they had question period, and I had to get from the house to the Mayflower Curling Rink. I had very little time to spare. My daughter happened to be in Halifax, and she said, “I’ll drive you down.” So she came and got me, and wisped me down there, we pulled up and there was a parking place right by the door, and I said, “Oh good there’s a spot right there!” because the parking spaces were all filled.

She was driving and she pulled in, and there was a man standing there, looking very important. He came running over to the car and he said, “You can’t park there! That’s for the minister and he’s not here yet!”

“I am the minister.”

You’d run into that more, and more, and more, “You can’t start yet because the minister’s not here yet” while I’m standing there, and I’m the minister. It happened more and more often than you can imagine.

The people would expect there to be a man, and if I wasn’t, they didn’t know quite what to do with me.

Mark Coffin: I spoke with Eleanor Norrie around this time last year–November of 2015 the same day, and at the same time that Justin Trudeau and his cabinet were sworn in.

Listening back to the interview, there are a number of unfinished sentences, and odd pauses that are awkward on the tape, but make total sense, when you realize that myself and Eleanor were both keeping one eye on her TV set to see which MPs made it into Cabinet.

It was impossible to talk about Eleanor’s experience in cabinet without contrasting it with Trudeau’s brand new, gender balanced cabinet. Here’s what Eleanor had to say about that…

Eleanor Norrie: I wish they wouldn’t talk about gender parity. I wish they wouldn’t say it that way. I think Justin Trudeau said, in order to make it happen, had to say there will be parity, and had to say you know make it fifty-fifty. Why is it that women are making parity? Why don’t they do it the other way around?

Mark Coffin: More women than men?

Eleanor Norrie:  No, “We’re going to have just as many men as we have women.”

Mark Coffin: Thanks for listening to this ‘prepisode’ of the Off Script podcast.

One of the full-length episodes we’re working on is an exploration of the experience of women in the Nova Scotia legislature. Stay tuned for that.

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