On the eve of the 1984 elections, importing this idea to Canada was attractive but dangerous. If Canadian polls and surveys "proved" anything over time, it was that women were a key element in the federal Liberal constituency. Moreover, if more focused soundings before September 4, 1984 "proved" anything, it was that the Liberals were heading for disaster. Whither women? Gender gap arguments suggested that newly unanchored (to use the public opinion terminology) female voters should vote for the NDP, but how many votes spread over how many constituencies would be necessary for a political breakthrough? Unfortunately, Kome does not address this point, thus leaving her discussion open to many of the same criticisms (for lack of precision, documentation, etc.) which feminists have raised in response to older female conservatism arguments.

Similarly, Women of Influence falls prey to a common tendency to emphasize the style, rather than substance, of female politicians. In Chapter 8, for example, we read that municipal activist True Davidson "was known for her flamboyant hats" (p. 103), that federal MP Pauline Jewett is a chain smoker "with a gravelly voice" (p. 107), and that Conservative cabinet minister Flora MacDonald is a "tall, warm native of Cape Breton" (p. 109). While it might be argued that such descriptions add color to Kome's text, they tend to detract from a more serious focus on the reasons why so few women have ascended to positions of political power. According to Kome, female political under representation can be attributed to the fact that women were "rebuffed by political parties" and, as a result, "retreated to municipal politics and to building their own national organizations" (p. 53). What about the thousands who joined party organizations, including women's organizations, and soldiered on for decades as faceless "donkey workers" (to use Judy LaMarsh's phrase) rather than as visible elite participants? And, even more important, what about female party elites who are non feminist or antifeminist?

This last question brings to light the election in 1984 of a record total of 27 women MFs. According to Kome, "it's interesting to speculate how many of [the women elected in Quebec] would have been nominated as Conservatives" had a Tory sweep been assured at the time of their nomination (p. 165). Given the record of female candidacies in such PC strongholds as Alberta and Atlantic Canada, this observation is generous, if not disingenuous. Moreover, does the number or percentage of female bodies in a legislature necessarily reflect the extent of feminist influence?

Finally, the problem of future strategies for political women must be addressed. If the performance of the Mulroney government since the 1984 election is any guide, then Canadian women would seem to have been misled by 1984 PC campaign promises and, even worse, unaware of the contradictions in what passed for a party platform in that year. Mulroney sought and indeed won support from virtually all segments of the Canadian electorate, including well- educated women, even though he maintained such irreconcilable positions as getting government "off people's backs," on the one hand, and implementing an effective national affirmative action policy, on the other. It is difficult if not impossible to create a lean, anti-regulatory government in Ottawa with the support of the private sector, and to implement simultaneously contract compliance legislation, for example, which would affect that very same business community. Mulroney should have been called to task during the campaign to address these and numerous other contradictory planks in his platform. Hopefully, the 1984 election and especially the NAC debate will provide a basis for more incisive questioning of party leaders in future years.

Penney Kome's book offers a good foundation for this ongoing process of political education. She has assembled a clear, readable text, excellent appendices on women's organizations and the history of election to provincial and federal public office, plus a bibliography and index. More women of influence should soon take their seats!

Sylvia Bashevkin teaches Canadian and comparative politics at the University of Toronto. She is the author of Toeing the Lines: Women and Party Politics in English Canada and the editor of Women and Politics in Western Europe.