Electoral Reform Committee on Sept. 21st, 2016

[Laura Stephenson]

Some contacts can occur, certainly. It wouldn't be the type of contact we know now, where there is a single person, but if you think of it in terms of wanting to do constituency service, you have five people trying to serve the constituency, right? From the voter's point of view, they're getting a lot more contact going on. Certainly, during campaign time, when mobilization is most important—and let's be honest, most Canadians are interested in politics at that time—you're going to have even more activities going on in these areas.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

This model could reconcile accessibility to members and a form of proportionality.

[Laura Stephenson]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Madam May.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want the panel here today, particularly Donna, having founded Equal Voice, to know that my colleague, Nathan Cullen, is a wonderful feminist and has raised with almost every witness the problem that we rank 64th in the world for women's representation.

But I think you're the first witness to point out that our ranking has been falling. I can only suppose that since our numbers inch up, other countries are making improvements by leaps and bounds. Do you want to comment on that?

[Donna Dasco]

That is exactly what has happened. Other countries are moving ahead of us. That is why our ranking is falling.

I want to add something very interesting in regard to the most recent report from the Inter-Parliamentary Union. They pointed out this fact back in 1995 at the Beijing convention. That motivated a lot of countries to aim for a 30% target for women in their parliaments. Sometimes we call that a “critical mass”. In their recent report, they're saying that in fact the new trend is to set 50% as a target. We're seeing that in a number of countries: European countries, African countries, and Asian countries.

When I read that, I thought, here we are in Canada and we haven't even reached 30% yet, and the rest of the world is striving for 50% through setting goals and targets and so on. Of course, it's not that they've reached them, but they're moving there, and here we are at 26%. I find that very disappointing for a great country such as Canada. We rank so highly on so many other dimensions, such as our standard of living and our quality of life. We are one of the top countries in the world for all of these things, and yet we're 64th when it comes to women. It's hard to believe.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you for the work you've done with Equal Voice.

I want to turn to Laura Stephenson. I note that you're very involved at Ontario's Western University in political science and research. I found a reference to an article back in 2011 that referred to a broader project of making electoral democracy work, as described at the time, with 20 researchers from around the world looking at five separate democracies. I wonder if that project is ongoing and which democracies you were studying.

[Laura Stephenson]

In fact, you heard earlier from the leader of that project, André Blais, at the university of Montreal. In fact, it has expanded to six countries. We looked at Germany, France, Spain, Canada, and Switzerland, and then we added Belgium.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

We have heard a bit about that study. Have you looked at the 36-country study that Arend Lijphart has put in the book Patterns of Democracy? Is that something you've looked to as a model around comparative democracies? What have you taken from that? How would you adjust it for the six-country study you're doing?

[Laura Stephenson]

Professor Lijphart's book was one of those that I learned about in graduate school, so it's certainly influential.

We haven't come to firm conclusions in our projects. Some of the most interesting work we've done has actually been in Ontario. We ran a very interesting experiment, in which we gave voters different ballots to see what would happen. We were able to hold constant preferences but change the way in which people would cast votes.

More recently, we ran a study around the European Parliament's elections, where we created fictional ballots made using real people—real European MPs—and we gave them different options. This is what I spoke of in my notes. It was about letting people vote in an open list system. This is where we found that everyone, females and males, voted for more female candidates as lists became more open, for women at a greater rate, so nonetheless, it was increasing.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

With the little time I have left—and forgive me for leaving this until last—for Diane Bergeron, I've been told by colleagues in the Greens that in New Zealand, since they moved to PR, they've been electing a lot more people with disabilities to Parliament. I'm wondering if that aspect of electoral reform is one that the Canadian National Institute for the Blind has looked at.

[Diane Bergeron]

Before I answer the question, I want to point out that my guide dog is also female, so you surely do have a fully female panel.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Diane Bergeron]

CNIB does not have an opinion on one particular system or another. I would suggest that the issue of having fewer people with disabilities or people with sight loss participating in political life is less reliant on the electoral system and more on the attitude of the political parties, the attitudes of people in general, and the stereotyping of people with disabilities as not being as capable or competent. If we change the attitudes, no matter what electoral system we use, we're going to find more people with disabilities, more women, and it's going to be more proportional regardless of how that system works out.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We'll go to Ms. Sahota now.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you.

Previously I wasn't able to give a shout out to my city, but it's nice to be in Toronto, and have our first female panel, and have all our committee together.

I was born in Toronto and I'm the member for Brampton North. I'm quite proud to say that in Brampton we outnumber the male MPs. We have 50% representation at the provincial level for the MPPs, and our mayor is a strong female role model, as well. We're doing quite well in the city of Brampton and I'm proud of that. I think mentorship is important, and since I've become a member of Parliament I've been mentoring a lot of young women to come up to Ottawa and spend time with me there to get some intrigue into politics.

When I first ran, I had a lot of people who weren't even in politics saying “Oh, I don't think you should run for federal politics. You would have to move away. Maybe you should look at the provincial level or the municipal level”. At a younger age I had people saying to me, “Oh, you're going to become a lawyer, and you're going to get into politics? Maybe you should be a school teacher. That's a good job for family life”. Throughout the campaign you hear stuff like, “Are you going to be able to handle the heat?” Those are the kinds of comments that are made to women often.

We are simplifying some of the things we're looking at here by saying one electoral system over another. We've had comments made that we'd have more compromise, or the political process will become more tame and more women will get involved. I think we're also perpetuating a stereotype once again that women don't want to be involved in politics, but there is a big problem. I put this question out to you, Ms. Dasco. Are women wanting to get involved, or are women not wanting to get involved, and if so, why are they not being elected in equal numbers? Do you think it's the electoral system, or do you think it's the quota that we need to get in place first and foremost, or a combination? What are the other barriers and factors that are preventing us from having an equal number of female representatives in the country?

[Donna Dasco]

I do believe it's institutional factors, including the electoral system. We would see a change if we had a system that was more conducive to electing women. If political parties, even in our current system, took it more seriously and devoted more thought and leadership to it, then we would do much better. I do not believe it has almost anything to do with attitudes in the public or the electorate, which are favourable generally to electing women. Sometimes we hear that women don't want to step forward, but I've Iooked at the data from the last election, and of Canada's five parties in the House of Commons, together they had 471 female candidates. There were more women running than there were seats in Parliament to hold them if they had all won. They all wanted to win. Obviously women are running, and we have to keep that in mind. Sometimes we hear people say that women don't want to run and all of that, but I believe they are there.

In the last provincial election in Ontario I was told Equal Voice had Patricia Sorbara come to speak with them after the election, and she said that Premier Wynne specifically made a point of calling women and asking them to run when she was Premier. She is reaching out and asking them, and the result was that many women stepped forward and they ended up winning those seats. We ended up taking Ontario from 29% to 36% women.

In Ontario, 51% of the New Democratic Party caucus is female. It can be done, and the women are there to step forward. In some cases they may need a little more coaxing, but if we have leadership like we see in some cases—and I want to say that many parties have made various efforts to do this—then I think that is the answer to your question.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Professor Stephenson, do you have anything to add to that?

[Laura Stephenson]

I agree that women do want to be involved in politics, but I think there are still some systemic barriers to becoming candidates that need to be considered. I agree that it's not that the public doesn't want to elect women; we don't find any evidence of that.

However, there are things to be thinking about. A simple one to think about is child care. The difference is in provisions of making sure that all candidates would have access versus not. There are also personal costs, obviously, to being involved in politics, and the extent to which those are unfairly or unequally distributed on men and women needs to be considered.

There are some general policies that could be put in place that might encourage more women to get involved.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Maguire.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank you for your presentations today as well.

Ms. Stephenson, I have a question. I apologize for not hearing the first part of your presentation. The comment that you made that caught my attention was about the open and closed lists. You made the comment that the placement of names on those lists is very important, and I totally agree.

Can you elaborate a little more on your thoughts around that open and closed...and how the lists would be prepared, and your comments about the party people voting on that as well?

[Laura Stephenson]

Certainly.

In a closed list system, the parties have full control over the names that are put forward. In such a case, it's very important that parties are cognizant of how many seats they're likely to win, and then to put a good, equal representation of various types of candidates in those positions. That's very important.

Some systems may have quotas, but quotas actually aren't going to go the whole way. If it's a list of 10 candidates and you put the females at the bottom five and you know you're only going to get three seats, that's not going to work out.

On the other hand, open list systems do allow for personal voting. My research would suggest that you might have more people in fact voting specifically for women or whichever candidates appeal to them personally, for whichever reason that might be, whether it's because they're part of a minority group or something like that.

So the construction of the list is very important.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thank you.

To your other comments about the type of system we would have, there was a suggestion earlier that there was only 3% of the population looking at this particular issue right now. I said earlier in questions with the previous panel that it doesn't matter whether it's 3%, 6%, or 10%, I still don't think that's enough, given the number of Canadians we have looking at the system. It's not really something that's top of mind compared to the other issues that the government is dealing with today.

Would you agree from your research—regardless of how it should be structured—that the Canadian public is engaged in wanting this right now, or is it politicians who want it?

[Laura Stephenson]

It is my job to study this stuff, so from my point of view there are lots of people engaged. My Twitter feed says that lots of people are engaged. On the other hand, when I speak my family, I have to explain what the heck I'm doing.

I would agree with you that this is not a pressing issue in the minds of Canadians, as it has been in other systems where there are very particular reasons why electoral reform has jumped to the top of the policy queue.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Can you elaborate on what those would be?