Thank you.
The PEI Coalition for Women in Government thanks the special committee for the opportunity to appear here this evening as a witness. It's particularly meaningful to appear on this topic during Women's History Month.
For some context, the PEI Coalition for Women in Government is a multi-partisan coalition of individuals and organizations that works to advance opportunities for women to be elected to all levels of government here in P.E.I. It's important to note that the coalition has a long history of participating in electoral reform, specifically proportional representation at the provincial level here. The focus of our submission is specifically on the opportunity for greater accessibility and inclusiveness of women in under-represented groups within electoral systems.
We know that women make up more than half of the Canadian and island population but are under-represented at both levels of government. Despite more women than ever before being elected to the House of Commons in 2015, the percentage of women MPs is 26%. Without any changes to the current system, it will take approximately 90 years to reach gender parity at the federal level. The numbers are even more concerning provincially, where women make up just 14.8% of members of the legislative assembly here in Prince Edward Island. Women can only make a substantial difference to the political discourse when they are present in more than token numbers, according to the United Nations, which has identified the critical mass of women in government as 33%, or one third.
History and examples show that the number of women in government will not rise naturally on its own. A concerted and sustained effort is needed to increase the number of women elected and includes a combination of approaches that also address structural and systemic barriers, which includes the electoral system.
The biggest barrier we have found to electing women lies with getting women's names on the ballot in the first place. Political parties provincially and federally are simply not nominating women at high enough numbers to make substantial change. There's also significant variation between parties in number of women candidates. Historically, smaller parties have nominated more women; however, this has not translated into electing more women within the current system.
While our work has always focused on collaborating with individual women and political parties, it has always remained clear that the whole electoral system requires a significant overhaul to ensure a truly representative democracy in which elected representatives reflect the diversity of the population.
When we look at democracies with the most balanced proportion of women, we find that most of these have some form of proportional representation. Almost all of the top countries outlined by the Inter-Parliamentary Union use some form of proportional representation.
Proportional electoral systems contribute to the election of more women because there's more diversity among parties elected. Under some proportional systems, parties are responsible for developing a candidate list, either closed or open. In these cases, parties are more likely to look at the list holistically in terms of gender, diversity, and perhaps geography, a balance between those identities, and a contagion effect is more likely within proportional systems. Contagion is a process by which parties adopt policies or practices initiated by other political parties. Proportional electoral systems are more likely to include smaller parties with more diverse candidate lists, which inspire other parties, then, to ensure their lists are also representative of the population. This would be true of P.E.I. and Canada, where smaller parties have historically nominated more women candidates than larger, more dominant parties.
According to research by political scientist Arend Lijphart, proportional representation has a positive impact on the number of women elected to government. For instance, he found that countries using proportional systems elected 8% more women to Parliament than majoritarian systems. In comparison to the recent federal election, where we saw a small 1% increase in the number of women elected to the House of Commons, an 8% jump in the number of women elected would bring Canada much closer to gender parity.
When we look at democracies with the most balanced proportion of women, we find that most of these have some form of proportional representation. Canada has a unique opportunity to develop a new proportional electoral system designed with a gender and diversity lens to best meet the needs of our increasingly diverse population.
In closing, we would like to thank you for this opportunity to provide input into your process and we look forward to the outcome.
Thank you.