First, thanks to the committee for inviting me to speak today. I'm honoured to be here.
I am here as an advocate for more women in politics. I'm one of the founders of an organization called Equal Voice, which is a multipartisan organization that promotes more women in politics. I'm past national chair of Equal Voice and I'm also founder of a group called the Campaign for an Equal Senate. We're fighting for a gender-equal Senate for Canada. I'm also a pollster, a former senior vice-president of Environics Research. But I speak here today as an individual, not as a representative of any group.
I am not an expert in electoral systems and I dare not debate the very fine points of electoral systems. I look at our systems through the lens of how they help us advance women in politics. That is my lens for looking at our institutions.
I'm here to remind what the sad facts are of female representation in Parliament. Today only 26% of Parliament is female, and that has gone up only one point since 2011—over four years, only a one-percentage-point improvement. We must do better.
As well, Canada now ranks 64th. I just looked up the ranking in the Inter-Parliamentary Union stats. I can say that in all of my decades of being an advocate, I don't think we've ranked as poorly as we do today. We must do better.
Why do we care? Women's voices have to be there. It's a matter of democratic representation. Decisions are made in our Parliaments. Women have to be there. I also know from my career as a pollster that there are a number of issues on which women and men differ in their opinions, and if women are not there, their opinions, their views on public policy matters are not adequately represented.
How do we solve the situation? Electoral reform is one key to change, and we now have, with a government committed to change, a historic opportunity to put in place a system that would enhance women's representation.
As we know the facts of women's representation, we also know a great deal about the research concerning which systems are better for electing women. We know this from a report that Equal Voice recently did. Fair Vote Canada has done tremendous work. The IPU has conducted research, as well as the Library of Parliament and many other organizations.
The conclusion: majority systems, including first past the post, are poor at electing women. According to the IPU, women won on average only 14% of all seats in these systems in the year 2012. Overall, women hold fewer than 20% of seats in countries using these systems. When it comes to alternatives, preferential voting is no better. PR systems are best for women, and such mixed systems as MMP are somewhere in between.
According to a summary prepared by Equal Voice, women hold more than 25% of seats in countries using various PR systems and about 23% of seats in mixed systems. Of the top 10 countries in the world in terms of women in parliaments, nine use either PR—five of them—or a mixed system, four.
I also think we have to recognize that PR systems, whatever their elements, do not guarantee that more women are elected, and it is a fact that many countries with more women in their parliaments have adopted some form of quotas. According to a new Inter-Parliamentary Union report, more than 120 countries have some form of quotas for electing women, and among the top 10 countries in the world, seven have some form of female quota.
Even on their own, PR systems, I would argue, make it more likely that women will be elected. We can see this, for example, in Finland and Denmark. Research also shows that the act of changing a system is likely to increase the numbers of women elected, as we have seen in New Zealand.
Last but not least, we also have the possibility of creating our own Canadian system.
I'm not sure whether this committee has called former prime minister Kim Campbell to speak, but Ms. Campbell has proposed dual-member ridings with one female and one male representative for each riding and she has put this forward as a simple and effective way to guarantee gender equality. What Ms. Campbell says is that she feels that this system fits very closely our current system, and she speaks passionately and at length about the benefits of a dual-member system. In this system, we all vote for both candidates. It's not that women vote for the women and men vote for the men, but all of us vote for a female and male candidate in a riding. I urge you to speak with Ms. Campbell about her proposal, which I think is very innovative and of course Canadian-made.
In conclusion, we have the opportunity to change the way we elect Canadians, with a federal government that has committed to this. Let's choose wisely, and let's focus on a system that much better represents half of our population.
Thank you very much.