Evidence of meeting #19 for Electoral Reform in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was politics.
A video is available from Parliament.
Campaigner-Electoral Reform, Leadnow.ca
On that specific point, not so much. I just want to thank you all, and I'll end by saying that if you are thinking about first past the post, you're endorsing a system that under-represents millions of Canadians.
I think it's a question of whether we can do better and whether we can do better at representing people in this country. I'll leave you with that thought.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you.
I have one last question that I would like to ask.
When it comes to countries that have list systems, either MMP or pure proportional—and I know there aren't very many that are pure proportional—on average, what is the gender makeup of the lists? I naively thought they would automatically be fifty-fifty, because that would be one of the reasons you might want to have a list. It was a naive assumption.
Is it anything close to fifty-fifty? If you look at Europe, for example, you would think that the lists would be fifty-fifty, but what are you finding?
Prof. Melanee Thomas
I have the figures for all OECD democracies, meaning Europe and a few other countries. For list proportional representation countries with a legislated gender quota, their legislatures are 32% women. If they have a voluntary party quota with list PR, their legislatures are 29% women. The list PR plus a legislated quota plus a voluntary party quota is 28% women. That suggests to me that if parties are voluntarily putting quotas on and they're legislating quotas, the barriers are considerable.
List PR countries with no quotas are at 30%—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Sorry, I don't understand. You're losing me a bit because I'm just looking at the list. I'm not looking at that portion of a system that is riding-based.
When you have a list in a PR or mixed member proportional system, what percentage of the list is typically women? Do some countries have fifty-fifty lists and some have sixty-forty? How does that work?
Prof. Melanee Thomas
The variance is going to be huge, and it will be determined by each political party.
I can tell you that there is at least one party in Sweden that will make it fifty-fifty, but there are a bunch of parties in Sweden that won't.
Prof. Melanee Thomas
Because parties set the list, it comes down to the party to figure out how many women they want on the list. There's no hard and fast rule. There really isn't.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Yes. Then it doesn't converge on equality in any sense in these countries. It's all over the map.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Okay. Thank you.
That was really a fantastic session, and I have a feeling that a lot of the testimony from today will work its way into the report.
Thank you for joining us from Calgary.
Thank you for joining and being here, Ms. Northam, and I thank Professor Massicotte in his absence.
Thank you for making the time today. Have a good day. Thank you.
Colleagues, we'll have about a 10-minute break because we—
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Okay. I thought we were going to do some stuff. There are so many meetings.... I thought there was a meeting.
Colleagues, I haven't hit the gavel yet, but I want to remind you that we have a meeting tomorrow at 9:30 in this room. I'm sorry we don't have a meeting after this.
The meeting is adjourned.