Status of Women committee  Yes. That can be expanded. I think it can have a real impact.

Status of Women committee  The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has been running an initiative very similar to that.

Status of Women committee  I'm not sure, really, that it's going to be easy to shut down social media attacks against women, but it seems to me that acknowledging that they occur is way better than denying that it's part of Canadian political culture.

Status of Women committee  The Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing, after the 1988 federal election, had a very detailed look at exactly how we could open up this process, including the purchase of bulk party memberships, the timing of party nomination meetings, and shutting down child care early when women candidates are affected.

Status of Women committee  The research on women at the provincial level, where we've had women party leaders who've often come out of cabinet, suggests that, first of all, there's a problem with women's recognition in many fields, not just politics. Knowing how you move up is often not clear. One problem suggested by Canadian research as well as comparative research is that party insiders are often using different metrics to assess the effectiveness of women versus men politicians.

Status of Women committee  I would say that proportional representation probably would help numbers of women in Canadian politics, but having watched this debate unfold over many, many decades, I don't think it's going anywhere as a solution any more than I think that quotas are going anywhere. I think what we really have to work on is transparency in the nominations process, because it seems to me that Canadians are really not showing much appetite for the sorts of institutional design discussions that we would need to actually get either PR or quotas.

Status of Women committee  Could I interject here?

Status of Women committee  Thank you. I commend the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women for its interest in barriers facing women in politics, and I appreciate the opportunity to appear today. Thanks to the support of the SSHRC, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, I have been able to study for an extended period many of the questions that face the committee.