Electoral Reform Committee on Aug. 30th, 2016

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Right.

[Prof. Melanee Thomas]

I will defer to my own premier when she says that these spaces for women and for other historically under-represented groups do not happen organically. They are not going to happen organically under our system and they are not going to happen organically just because you change to PR. You need to make space for them.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

We can do both. I guess that is the point of the exercise. It is not an either/or situation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We are going to Mr. Rayes now. He is going to ask some questions.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Thomas, I will let you continue. I would like to pursue this further.

In the whole electoral reform debate, we hear big pronouncements by various people, but it really seems that people are being led to believe that changing the electoral system would solve many of the representation and voter turnout issues.

From what you are saying, it seems that political parties could take concrete steps and work together to change the culture within Parliament in order to produce results, without necessarily changing the voting method.

Is that correct?

[Prof. Melanee Thomas]

Yes.

In terms of achieving representational equity, I see no good reason why it is not happening now, other than things that simply cannot be defended. It is literally 169 women. This is all somebody would need to recruit. It boggles my mind that we can't find them. It boggles my mind even more, to be honest, when we are talking about people who aren't white and about indigenous Canadians.

I am sympathetic to the idea of having both, of having a more proportionate system that better reflects partisan preferences from the electorate into representatives. Sure, we can do both, but it is clear to me, based on my research-based reading of the Canadian political landscape, that the majority of our representational problems could be solved right now without an institutional change. I have little faith that if parties and other political actors aren't prepared to solve those problems now—

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Ms. Thomas ...

[Prof. Melanee Thomas]

—then why would they under a different electoral system? That is the point.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Ms. Thomas, so if we took all the energy that this committee is devoting to the issue, all the financial resources allocated to it, and all of our prime minister's political will, and if each of the political parties used them to take concrete steps to field 169 women candidates in the next elections, we would solve the problem much more quickly.

[Prof. Melanee Thomas]

No. My question is to every political party. Why aren't you doing it now? I don't see any good reason.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Exactly.

[Prof. Melanee Thomas]

I think this current process that allows me to ask every single political party “Why aren't you doing it now?” is certainly worthwhile, simply because that question is now in the public record.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you.

[Prof. Melanee Thomas]

I am not sure if that helps answer your question.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you, that was a very good answer.

Ms. Northam, in spite of the whole process that has been put in place, I cannot say there are a lot of people right now in the various consultations that have begun. We'll see what happens during the cross-Canada tour.

Would you say that the consultation process established by the government is exhaustive enough to justify changing the voting method at this time?

[Katelynn Northam]

From our community's perspective, as I said earlier, our community would like to see this done. It is something they have been talking to us about for a long time. Our experience is that we have been going to some of these town halls and we have seen town halls that have overflowed. I hope it is also your experience that lots of people are excited to come and talk about it.

I think there are other ways we could go about having this conversation. I mentioned the citizens' assembly, which has been held up as a very good example of a way to have a deliberative process around these questions that is much more free from political influence. We are committed to engaging in this process insofar as it has been laid out.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Does your organization support any kind of change in the voting method or is it strictly in favour of proportional representation?

[Katelynn Northam]

At this moment, our community has endorsed proportional representation, so that's what we are supporting. We don't have a definitive position on the other questions at this point, but if that does come about later on, we'd be happy to relay that to you.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

If the government ultimately decides to put forward a different proposal, you would have no opportunity to express your views even if you disagreed with it, since you are not in favour of a referendum to give Canadians an opportunity to express their views. Is that correct?

[Katelynn Northam]

We're sort of keeping an eye on things. We're committed to engaging with the process all the way through. We definitely, as a community, are very good at rallying around the causes that our community cares about. We'd be looking to engage with members of Parliament, depending on what the proposal was at the end of the day. We'd have to stop and re-evaluate and see what we want to do at that point, so I can't really speak to that question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Ms. Sahota is next.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you.

I'm laughing because my colleague and I were talking about recruitment right now and we think we should recruit you, Professor Thomas. You would be an excellent politician, except for the fact that you won't travel and you may be too sensible.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I don't want to be testifying and I do want to learn as much as possible from all the witnesses here, but I am from a minority group and I am a woman and I did run in this last election. I have a young son, so I have a young family.

I can attest to why I made the choice and to the barriers that I felt I faced and still face today, and why I've talked to a lot of other women I know, trying to encourage them to run, and the responses that I get from them.

Some of the barriers have to do with that Internet stuff you were hinting at earlier, the dirty politics that can be in an election campaign. Certain ridings are more prone to that than others, depending on who you're running against and what they're known for. Some women don't want to risk the negative impact it might have on them. They fear it may have a worse impact on them than on their male counterparts at times.

I can definitely tell you that it wasn't the electoral system. Most women who want to get into politics like the competitiveness and like politics. That's why they're there, but it's also some of the stuff that my colleague Ms. Romanado mentioned. It's after the fact.

I sit on the procedure and House affairs committee. We've been looking at a lot of factors that we can change in Parliament in order to make it more inclusive, to allow more people to make that decision to run. A lot of people don't do it because of the travel that you mentioned.

They don't do it because of the work/life balance. How can that be attained? How can we ensure our children aren't strangers on the floor? How can we make those procedural amendments, such as maternity leave? There are so many things to consider that are inherent obstacles for women. I know some are for men as well, but there are other biological factors and problems that women have that men don't encounter.

It's so complex. Why more women aren't in politics is such a complex issue. It's very simple to just say, “This is the reason, and we can solve it by either PR....” Had we had a PR system in place today, you could maybe make the link that maybe we have a gender-balanced cabinet because PR countries lead to gender-balanced cabinets. Well, no, they don't. It's political will, as you said. If you want to do it, you'll make it happen.

I definitely agree that we need the political will across all parties, regardless of what party it is, to get that mirror image in Parliament.

Thank you for your testimony today. You've given us a lot of other things to think about.

I want to open the floor to you and Ms. Northam. If there's anything else you want to say in conclusion before you have to leave today, things that you weren't able to testify to today, I'd like to open the floor to you to do that.

[Prof. Melanee Thomas]

On recruitment, there are concrete steps that could be taken that would have payoff down the road.

We know that political parties are a vessel that recruits candidates and forwards them for election. We know that party members are much more likely to be men than they are to be women. We know that when women are party members, at least from research that has been done in the past by William Cross and Lisa Young, the kinds of positions that women were in were different from men's positions.

In blending that research with other research, I would say this: recruiting women as candidates first is probably a good way to fail. I would recommend that all political parties recruit women as party members and integrate them into internal party democracy processes. The other thing that becomes clear from the research is that if those women are in key positions, they will recruit other women as candidates and they'll recruit other women into their parties.

The other thing that also becomes clear from the research is that women need a lot of time to set things up so that they can run, a lot more time than some of the men who get asked. This could be a multi-year process. If you're asking somebody two months from an election date, they're probably going to say no. If you ask them two years from an election, it might be a little different.

The last thing I'll say, which came up in the research that I conducted with my colleague Lisa Lambert, is less about the Internet, but it links to it as well: sitting members expressed safety concerns not only for their person but for their children when they were talking about the conduct of their jobs in ways that their male peers did not. This is an additional element to take into consideration when we're talking about finding those 169 women and setting the stage for them so they'll actually be prepared to participate.