That “glass ceiling” holding back women from positions of power has been shattered with such force that recent years have seen a radical shift in the demography of women in public service. One need only look to our own legislature to see evidence of this, with more women serving in public office for the Conservative Party than the Liberals, despite the quotas in place for the latter party.

Diane Ablonczy is Secretary of State for Seniors; Leona Aglukkaq is the Minister of Public Health; Diane Finley is the Minister of Human Resources; Bev Oda the Minister for International Cooperation; Gail Shea the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans; Rona Ambrose is the Minister of Public Works and, more recently, has taken over the Status of Women portfolio.

That last Ministry, now funded by just $25 million, has a proclaimed mandate to promote the “full participation of women in the economic, social and democratic life of Canada.” The Status of Women exists to “advance equality for women and to remove the barriers to women’s participation in society.”

If the original goal was to promote women and to remove “barriers”, then mission accomplished. “You’ve come a long way, baby,” as Ms.Magazine would note.

With women now filling executive roles in the public sector at historic highs, Maria Barrados, the president of the Public Service Commission says it may be time to consider whether they should still get preferential treatment under employment equity laws. In other words, it may be time to stop the affirmative action.

“Given the representation of women, I think it’s fair to look at the act,” Maria Barrados told a Senate Finance Committee.

Women now hold 55% of all jobs in the public service, and 43% of executive positions. Ms.Barrados says that government should strive for a reasonable balance of gender hiring, but doesn’t think that special programs are required to attract either gender.

The problem with many of the equity laws put in place is that they’re outdated. The Employment Equity act was first passed 24 years ago, which attempted to target the hiring of more women, aboriginals, visible minorities and the disabled in government jobs.

The recent departure of Helena Guergis from the Status of Women portfolio caused the Toronto Sun’s John Snobelen to ask whether we even still need a ministry that looks solely at women’s issues. What purpose does such a ministry serve, he asks, other than to provide meaningless political pandering to questionable women’s groups?

As noted by the Sun writer, this ministry was created to answer a royal commission on the status of women in Canadian society that was tabled in the House of Commons in 1970. In other words, this is a mandate that is older than many of the women working in the public sector who have long since prospered from a shift in hiring practices that has skewed the gender imbalance in government hiring to their favour.

The fact is that Canada now has an egalitarian society in which women enjoy the full range and access to positions of importance and power as any man. But they have to work hard to accomplish it. No longer should we be counting and giving preferential bias to the representation of gender in public service. After all, it’s a rather arbitrary sector to focus on. You don’t see the creation of organizations dedicated to the proportional representation of women in the Armed Forces, construction, or garbage collection.

As Barbara Kay notes in the National Post, that husbands and fathers should put the importance of their families ahead of their own lives is taken for granted in western civilization. Perhaps we could make a note of that significance sometimes as well.

Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press

You didn’t have to be a psychic to know that Status of Women Minister Helena Guergis was going to “offer her resignation” today. Perhaps what was surprising is that not only did Ms.Guergis leave her Cabinet position, but will sit outside of the party caucus as the RCMP investigates “serious allegations” about her conduct. In the end, it’s probably the best thing for the Conservative Party to distance itself from the train wreckage.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper explained the reasons for booting her from the caucus to the press gallery in Ottawa.

“Last night, my office became aware of serious allegations regarding the conduct of the Honourable Helena Guergis. These allegations relate to the conduct of Ms. Guergis and do not involve any other minister, MP, senator or federal government employee.

“I’ve referred the allegations to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner and to the RCMP. Under the circumstances, I will not comment on them further.”

Coming back into the fold is former embattled environment minister Rona Ambrose, who had a tough go of it her first time around as a Cabinet Minister. She will take over the portfolio of Helena Guergis.

The fallout is based partially on a Toronto Star article that ran yesterday in which wild claims of impropriety were made about her husband, Rahim Jaffer, who bragged in an email that he reach into the PMO for his business contacts. This claim has been largely refuted by Conservatives over the past 24 hours.

The opposition has been nothing if not elated over these events, with NDP MP Pat Martin making the hyperbolic comparison to the sponsorship scandal.

The taint spilled over last night onto Helena Guergis when it was revealed that Mr.Jaffer has also used her parliamentary email address for his own personal business. The party also asked him to remove the party logo from his personal website, which up until yesterday had remained intact.

But perhaps the straw that broke the camel’s back is that a review of her election expenses show she tried to write off clothing purchases under the word “career”. Elections Canada limits specific and reasonable expenses to travel, living arrangements, and child care. This is where the ethics argument comes into play, particularly unreasonable coming from a conservative politician who expects taxpayers should foot the bill for her choice of purse.

All of these myriad reasons for booting her from caucus and forcing her to resign notwithstanding, it doesn’t mean that her career is over. The fact is that she had become too hot a political potato to touch, and the stink coming from Rahim Jaffer was getting all over the party. And let’s face it, none of this has anything to do with the Conservative Party.

The Toronto Star article which went viral yesterday, will likely also come under heavy scrutiny, not least for its interesting characterization of sex trade workers as “busty hookers”, a term entirely out of sorts with the usually politically correct newspaper. Because the term wasn’t put in quotation marks, it’s difficult to discern exactly who is characterizing the prostitutes in this way, and whether it’s done for political reasons.

As for Helena Guergis, if she is worthy, she can wait in the shadows like Rona Ambrose or Maxime Bernier, and reemerge at a later date. I’ve noticed that the Conservatives often bring up “prospects” too quickly, and just like a professional sports team, sometimes you have to send them back to the minors for a while. Then again, sometimes you need to cut from the team altogether. How it proceeds from here will be almost entirely up to Ms.Guergis.

UPDATE

Perhaps it isn’t clear from my post, but Rona Ambrose isn’t getting a brand new Cabinet position. She’s already the Minister of Public Works.

Photo: MP Helena Guergis is questioned by reporters, September 17, 2009. Pawel Dwulit / The Canadian Press.

This is too much, even for unabashed partisan Liberals, to handle. Are we now expected to go on a 24-hour Helena Guergis rage watch, just over one incident? It has been 11 days since the Minister for the Status of Women flew into a rage at Prince Edward Island airport. Stay tuned for breaking news and mounting casualties.

I mean, really, what could be more pointless? It has now been 14 years since former Prime Minister Jean Chretien put his mittens around a protesters neck and began choking the life out of him. You don’t see the news reporting stories like this:

“Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien was at a Liberal fundraiser today to give a speech meant to rally the party around Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff. Mr.Chretien managed to get through the entire speech without once choking anyone from the audience.”

But if the Ottawa Citizen is guilty of flogging a dead horse, the Liberals are just as ready with the whip. In the CBC today, the Liberal party has announced its intention to call for a “formal investigation” into the temper tantrum thrown by Ms.Guergis on February 19. Sadly, I’m not making this up.

The Liberals are so interested to get to the bottom of the airport rage incident, they have filed an Access to Information request to acquire copies of the security video. For what purpose, or how it pertains to the job of holding the Conservative government to account on its record, is a complete mystery.

The Liberal critic for the Status of Women, Anita Neville, said Ms.Guergis could have violated Canadian aviation regulations with her argumentative and belligerent behaviour that could have put passenger safety at risk.

Boy, if that isn’t stretching the fabric of truth to the physical limitations of science, I don’t know what is.

There’s no question that the minister acted inappropriately, and that she caused embarrassment to herself and to her party. But to say that she violated “aviation regulations” and put passengers at risk is more than just a little over the top. It’s like asking someone to step down from their job because they got angry and argued with a policeman for issuing them a speeding ticket.

You would think with the current Liberal agenda of changing the rules of prorogation and getting the detainee committee back together, that a personal outburst in an airport would rank fairly low on the priority list. But as this party has demonstrated with “Wafergate”, the aboriginal body bag incident, and of course bathroom breaks during G8 photo-ops, there’s nothing too insignificant for the Liberal Party to demand an investigation for.

Now, if Stephen Harper really believes that the incident has damaged the reputation of the office for the Status of Women to the extent that Helena Guergis needs to be removed, I’m sure that will take place in the next cabinet rotation. Or better yet, they could save $25 million and axe the whole ministry in the name of balancing the books. But all a formal investigation is likely to prove is that Helena Guergis is a human being, and like all human beings, not immune to making mistakes.