It does suggest that our first non-white PM is more likely to be from Central Canada than the West.

Dare I ask the basis of this claim?

(And I'm not suggesting the inverse is true.)

For those who care. What a wonderful country we will have when discussions like this don't even matter.

My point is that the language requirements in politics are not the real barrier for non-whites and women.

I was born in BC. Speaking French does not come easily, even to those of anglo descent, and it most definitely does not come easily to those of Asian heritage. My son did the prerequisite immersion French in elementary school but now that he's in his thirties, his Asian languages are far more fluent than his French..

TwoYen, you misunderstand. I am not of European descent. In fact, I am speaking specifically of first generation canadians of non-anglophone or francophone origin. In Quebec, we are known for speaking at least three languages. The mother tongue (chinese, indian, armenian, lebanese, vietnamese, haitian, etc.), french AND english. Again, the first generation canadians are those born in Canada – in this instance, Quebec – in a home where either official languages are the NOT primary language spoken.

All this to say, we have grown up in an environment where we are exposed to several different languages and picking up a new one is easier for us.

I don't know what it is like for those who grow up outside of Quebec but for us, the bilingual requirement attached with being a successful politician in this country is usually not a problem.

With math, what Summers was saying is that men tend to have more variability in mathematical ability, not that men are on average better. Thus there are fatter tails on both ends of the spectrum for men, leading to more exceptional male than female mathematicians. Totally anecdotally, I feel that if anything, women are better at math on average than men.

Victim Classes?!?! Boy you Reformers sure have a way with words, huh?

I don't believe any policy 'works'. Leave people alone and let them make their own arrangements instead of subjecting them to half baked ideas from social scientists who think the best way to bring people together is focus on differences and ignore similarities.

Emphatically yes, because along with ability come equal parts of ready and willing.

For that matter, will we ever have a Connecticut-born, Texas-bred cartoon cowboy for PM?

I'm sick and tired of our media elite looking South and wondering (because they have nothing else to say) whether we're missing out on something or necessarily doing something wrong. It's stupid.

Canada doesn't have the same demographic make-up as the US, but more importantly, doesn't have the same history. Really, the focus should be on the under-representation of women.

Even Trudeau-loving people like my parents voted for Linc.

I also know for a fact that Linc was someone who people in the community (that would be white people) saw as someone with a lot of promise and gave him the various chances that he needed to show what he could do and prove himself to a wider audience before getting elected.

I think this gives an example of what members of various groups or backgrounds, whether female, of Indian ancestry or aboriginal or whatever need – just the belief by people that they can do it and an opportunity to show what they can do.

It just requires that people overcome their reticence or what's that other word … oh yeah, prejudice and give an opportunity to someone who deserves it rather than depending on the old school ties, or club memberships or who served with whose father etc.

The difference with the Laurier example however are greater than the comparisons. The population size of Quebec alone makes the comparison difficult. Before Confederation, we had a number of Quebec prime ministers such as Cartier, and Quebec leaders played an intricate and significant role in shaping the new nation and drafting the Constitution.

I don't know how you do this since humans are rather tribal but I do know our multi-culti policies now are not the way to do it. Accentuating our differences to bring us together is really not going to work, it is going to create ethnic ghettos across Canada with little understanding of others.

Still, I don't think it is going to happen anytime soon. Comparatively few natives graduate from university, which is sort of a prerequisite to being PM. Moreover, an on-reserve native candidate would have to deal with the considerable resentment many have towards the special rights and privileges proferred to natives. An off-reserve native, by contrast, is going to be less likely to be able to tap into the networks needed to get elected as an MP.

In a way this is similar to the dilemma facing African American presidential aspirants. A traditional black candidate like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson can get pigeonholed as being "the black candidate". Obama's unique background enabled him to get around this typecasting, while still winning support among black voters (something that might not have happened had he not moved to Chicago, married Michelle etc.).

Canada's first aboriginal PM would likely be somebody who grew up in some affluent, tree-lined Toronto neighbourhood, but who moved up north to be a social worker or what-have-you.

It's also a tricky question in Canada, partly because our history has leaned toward preserving various social and cultural identities (French, Aboriginal), rather than striving for their diminishment (i.e., assimilation, integration, that sort of thing).

How do we preserve and celebrate cultural differences – which is generally a positive thing – yet seek to make those same differences (region, race, language, gender, etc…) irrelevant in arenas like employment and politics?

There's a lot more to the Canadian paradox than asking when we'll see a woman or a non-white person as our Prime Minister.

(p,s.: I know this has been noted, but Aaron: We don't elect the PM in this country!!! Surely we appreciate the need for accuracy and clarity about such things after last year's madness.)

Let's turn the lens around. Can any of you tell us how many black members there are in the Parliamentary Press Gallery? I don't know of any but obviously I wouldn't know them all.

The whole French-Canadian/Quebec thing may have degenerated into self-parody now, but when he was elected the orange order was still huge and there was large scale screwing over of french voters. It was easily worse for him getting to power than it was for Obama, although the larger % French in Canada than blacks in the US helped.

Under this criteria, Canada already "elected" a woman prime minister when the Progressive Conservative party elected Kim Campbell to become our 19th Prime Minister in 1993. Her party was decimated the next election, but that isn't any more her fault than if they had won would be because of her. The leaders aren't the only (or most reasonable) reason why people vote for a given candidate to represent them in their riding.