Law: apparently not the only path to politics (at least in Canada)

This post is for all those aspiring politicos out there: law school is not your only option!

A common belief is that most politicians were lawyers before getting elected, an understandable assumption since so many former Canadian PMs (starting with John A. Macdonald, Wilfred Laurier to the more recent slate of Diefenbaker, Trudeau, Mulroney, Chrétien and Martin) were all lawyers.

So one can be forgiven for thinking that law school is step one on the path to political power.

Not true - well, at least in Canada.

In our pool of 139 MPs from the 38th and 39th Parliament, only 12% were lawyers. The others came from a variety of backgrounds, including: 24% from business or finance, 19% from government or politics; 15% from education and 10% from other industries.

What's especially interesting, is to see how Canadian politicians compare with their international counterparts. Last spring, the Economist had a look at the professional backgrounds of international politicians and had some interesting observations on the cultural meaning of these preferences.

For instance, in China, engineers dominate the political class. President Hu is a hydraulic engineer, his predecessor Jiang Zemin was an electrical engineer and the current Prime Minister is a geological engineer. The influence of engineers in politics is partly the result of both Chinese ideology and history. Specifically, under Maoism, engineering was considered a safe field of study.

In countries where power has been seized via military coups, the political class is comprised of generals. Egypt has a preference for politicians who were academics, South Korea for civil servants and Brazil for doctors.

In the US, lawyers are prevalent. Case in point, the Obama administration. President Obama, his Secretary of State, his Attorney-General, his Director of the CIA and his Vice President are all lawyers. Similarly, over half of America's senators practised law.

The article also points to the increasing trend towards professional politicians, particularly in more mature democracies such as Britain and the US. Whereas traditionally, politics was something that was done after a "real" career, that is shifting. For example, David Cameron, the UK Tory leader, went from university into the party's research department, pausing for a brief career in PR. However, he has essentially, in one form or another been in politics his entire adult life.

Similarly Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, Britain's current and former prime ministers, became members of Parliament at 32 and 30, making their past careers (journalist and barrister) short interludes.

Will or is Canada currently seeing the rise of the professional politician? More on this to come...