Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 17th, 2016

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to come back to electing women in parliament, which is good for families, and also proportional representation. I got to travel to Norway a few years ago where they rank 15th in the world for the number of women elected to Parliament. Forty per cent of their Parliament is female, and they also elect using proportional representation. The observation that I had from the embassy representatives who had organized our delegation was expressed so diplomatically. They said, “We've seen your parliaments and legislatures in Canada, provincially and federally, and ours is nothing like yours.”

So I'm curious—your prime minister being turfed from the House notwithstanding—about the decorum and the sense of co-operation within your Parliament. Because we hear that the perception that you have to be thick-skinned in order to stand for office is something that may dissuade either women from standing, from being willing to put themselves forward, or parliamentarians, in general, who have small children or sensitive family members.

Do you have any comments on the tone and how that affects recruitment?

[David Wilson]

Yes, I would imagine that would have some effect on the willingness of some people to seek election, or of their families to want them to be involved in it. At question time, certainly, it's very loud and confrontational, and much more so from members in the chamber than for people who can hear a broadcast of it because only one microphone is live from the broadcast. But when you're in the room, I know from my own experience, it's very loud and there's quite a lot of calling back and forth across the chamber.

I think the sense would be that would have some effect here, that members do need to be quite thick-skinned, and I think parties would generally agree with that.

The Green Party, which only has list MPs, has a policy of having 50% male and 50% female membership on their list, so they alternate. They do have a gender-balanced party in the House. No other party of a larger size does have that, and I think the total representation of women at the moment is around 33%, 34%. It has stayed that way for quite a long time, and I suppose the feeling members have had is that the party list is the way to address that, that parties wanting to appeal to the widest possible electorate will ensure that all voters are well represented on the list. I don't think that has been a reality, though, because while it may be true in theory, if you elect people who are actually willing to put themselves forward and you think are good candidates, then that theory probably isn't going to achieve the results you might want.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

The very last question from our family-friendly study this year is from Mr. Schmale.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Thank you very much.

When you made changes to your voting system, was that done unilaterally by the party in power or was it done by a referendum consulting the people?

[David Wilson]

It was neither of those options. It was done unanimously by all parties in the House, and they do a review in every three-year Parliament of all Parliament's rules and make quite frequent adjustments to them, but it's always done unanimously, with the party realizing they're not going to be the government forever.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you very much for taking this time out of the morning there in New Zealand. I'm sure you can be back and forth with our clerk if either of you have any questions. We really appreciate this. It's been very helpful.

[David Wilson]

You're welcome. We're pleased to speak to you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We stand adjourned.