Status of Women Committee on June 7th, 2018

[Kayleigh Erickson]

There are a number of strategies that can be employed to have an impact in the short term. I think one could be a quota. For example, Rwanda has a constitutional quota. There are various different types. Legislative quotas have also been proven to be successful.

Again, it depends on the context and the countries in which you're implementing them, because they'll have different social and cultural factors that you need to take into consideration.

It's true that Canada has become a laggard in terms of women's representation, and we need to be looking to countries that have fast-tracked women's representation, which are now considered the vanguards, countries like Rwanda and the Scandinavian countries.

I think also reforming our political financing system is really important because we know that women spend 10% more than men in campaigns. We know it can cost up to $200,000 to run a successful campaign, so we need to be providing more incentives. I know that some political parties have funds, but they're really minuscule amounts compared to how much it really costs to run.

I think those are two changes.

The third one I think is looking at our electoral system and maybe moving from first past the post to a proportional representation system.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Ms. Marriott, are there any recommendations you would have? As I said, we're 60th in the world. Have you any recommendations to shock the system to get that percentage increased in relatively fast order?

[Shal Marriott]

I think we really need to pause and consider why it's so seemingly important that we need to shock the system. We may be 60th in the world and we may have less than 30%, but I like to think that our members of Parliament who are women are really astounding. I think we should be highlighting them and commenting on the fact that they worked hard for their position, and they are providing role models to young women.

However, when we start trying to set goals and targets, saying that it has to 40% or 50%, we don't know if voters will elect 40% or 50%. We don't know that 40% or 50% of seats in the House will be filled by women who are qualified in the view of the voters.

By setting targets, numbers, or goals arbitrarily, we are working off information that we simply don't have. What's worse is that we make women feel guilty who are uncertain about politics, or who perhaps don't want to be involved, but then feel pressured, thinking “I should do what's right by my gender; I should get involved.” I do not think we want to be encouraging that attitude.

Sixtieth—who cares, when we have such strong women already here?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much.

We're now going to move on to our second round. We're going to start with five minutes for Stephanie Kusie.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you both to Shal and Kayleigh for being here today.

Kayleigh, I want to say that I have a lot of respect for the Canadian Women Voters Congress. I was the Alberta south chapter chair for Equal Voice, and I've gotten to know Kara Levis over the last few years. Of course, she ran for the leadership of the Alberta Party. I think she's just an outstanding individual. You're certainly in good company.

Shal, can you give examples of your own experiences where you feel you have been told the correct things to think as a young woman in politics, please?

[Shal Marriott]

When I first got involved in politics, I erred more on the side of free markets, free ideas, and fundamental rights and freedoms, what is typically considered right wing. That's not to delve into my personal ideology, because I feel it's not necessarily relevant in this matter, but the moment you even begin to hint ideologically that you are a woman and you are perhaps on the right wing, you suddenly get ostracized, because that's not the correct view, apparently. I hear this from many women who share my views or who are on the side of the spectrum with me, that we should be supporting government funding for everything, from day care to health care and other such programs. Again, it's not just me. It almost feels as if in political rhetoric today, many women who even consider being conservative feel ostracized, especially amongst young women. They feel that they cannot be a feminist and a conservative, because feminist values are somehow contrary to the beliefs conservatives have. I mean lower case “c” conservative in this case.

Again, the pro-life/pro-choice example, on which I don't believe my opinion matters, is something I observe quite heartily, because I have friends on both sides of that issue who are constantly demeaning and fighting one another and making it seem like there's a right and wrong answer for women.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you.

My colleague, Rachael Harder, had a similar question, but I'm going to ask this as well. If not through government policy and processes, what do you think needs to happen in society for women to obtain equal opportunities, including running for office, as you see it?

[Shal Marriott]

I think we need to raise greater awareness of the fact that women have been in politics, they are in politics, who those women are, and what made them successful. I believe in getting personal in this matter. You're a woman who has been elected to office. Share your experiences. Tell what they can expect, what concerns and fears you may have had—perhaps not during an election cycle, but certainly outside of it—to young women who are passionate and enthusiastic but uncertain. Don't lie to them about some fantasy of what we all want politics to be. Be honest. I think that's the greatest thing we can start doing.

Outside of that, I've always been a firm believer in talking to people one on one, going to coffee shops, and hosting town halls. The first time I ever spoke on this issue was at a town hall hosted in Ottawa West—Nepean. That was a lovely experience, because I got to voice my opinions. I got to hear others who disagreed, and we got to have a community conversation with a member of Parliament listening. I think that's really where change begins, at the grassroots level, by having one-on-one conversations, by talking about what issues are, what issues are not, and how we can better allow women to represent and express themselves.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you.

You gave an example earlier of women being deemed unsuitable for public life as a result of their personal beliefs, such as being pro-life. Do you think pro-life women should be withheld from a committee chair position as a result of holding that belief?

[Shal Marriott]

I'm glad you asked that, because I think that's absolutely ridiculous. I think any woman who is perfectly qualified and democratically elected ought to be able to hold a chairmanship that she deserves. I think that demeaning that woman and saying she's anti-women is against the entire spirit of a committee on women. I cannot believe that a committee that believes in the spirit of democracy and equality would do that.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you, Shal.

Further to the question from my colleague, Marc Serré, do you see party quotas as harmful to women, and if so, how?

[Shal Marriott]

I believe that party quotas are one of the worst things we can do for the advancement of the equality of women, because they demean women down to nothing but their gender. We can scrutinize men for catcalling us because of heels, but is that worse than a woman essentially saying to another woman, “You're nothing but those heels”? That's the attitude I feel quotas represent.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Excellent. Thank you, Shal.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

That's looking—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

We're now going to move over for our next five minutes to Sean Fraser.

Go ahead, Sean.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thanks very much. Thanks to both of you for being with us.

My first question is for Kayleigh.

You mentioned that you took part in the Daughters of the Vote exercise. Did that make you personally more likely to actually run for office in the future?

[Kayleigh Erickson]

I think it definitely made it more likely, because through that experience I now have mentors. I now have a network of 337 daughters across Canada who I know I can go to. I can ask questions. I can lend support. They'll help me in terms of helping with the media that I put out. They will provide me with their ideas and the experiences that they've had. Now I actually have this really strong solidified network and mentors who came out of it who will be able to support me.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

With respect to forums, or fora, that are created like that with the help of some public funding, one of the things that we got into in when Stats Canada was here is that there's not much being done to track in a longitudinal study the participation of the women who take part in these kinds of things to see whether they end up running 5, 10, 20 years down the road.

Do you think monitoring the individuals who take part in these kinds of things would be a helpful thing to understand whether they statistically prove the anecdote that you just shared?

[Kayleigh Erickson]

I think it would it be interesting. I think from my own experience with the Canadian Women Voters Congress, we saw a number of women go on to run successful campaigns. However, I don't think it's necessarily just important for women to go on as candidates, but that they just get politically involved, whether that's working on a campaign, door knocking, or whatever that looks like. I think these are the spaces that encourage women to get involved in a way that they best see themselves moving forward, whether that's as campaign chair or, hopefully, eventually becoming a candidate themselves.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

You mentioned as well that you took part in student government. I got my start the same way. One of your fellow Daughters of the Vote is currently the student union president for St. Francis Xavier University, a phenomenal person.

I'm wondering if we accept your position that, yes, this does make people more likely to become engaged or potentially even run for office in the future, whether it's student politics, whether it's mentoring Daughters of the Vote, whether it's a model parliament or model UN type exercises.... We're going to make recommendations as a committee at the end of this report that the government do this or that, or potentially do nothing, to help improve the ability of women to take part in politics in some way. How do you think we can create that opportunity for young women in particular to become engaged so we create that pipeline of potential participants in the civic discourse in Canada?

[Kayleigh Erickson]

I think one of them is putting more funding towards these already ongoing opportunities. I think, again, a lot of it comes down to as leaders, the language and ways we talk about women in politics. For example, in those model parliament sessions, I saw a lot of what we don't like about federal politics being recreated and mirrored in those simulations. Young women are watching how the leaders of their country are engaging on issues of gender. Unfortunately, some of those situations get recreated in those mentorship opportunities or in those opportunities where we come together.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

With respect to the best way to make this a reality, if there are groups doing it already, do you think we should say, look, we don't need the government through Status of Women Canada to personally run these programs, but to find the people who have developed the expertise and fund those organizations that are either nationally or community-based that are running boot camps, model parliaments, or whatever it might be?

Would that model be a successful way for the government to engage more young women in this type of an activity?

[Kayleigh Erickson]

Yes, in general, but I think that if the government did come out with its own training programs, that would be a great step. But, as I said, I think it's also important to recognize that this work is already happening, albeit in understaffed and underfunded organizations. If we boost the funding, there are opportunities to expand these programs. There are opportunities to go into rural ridings where we know that there is a rural and urban divide.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

We've got 45 seconds to go.

One of the struggles that we're going to have when we're trying to make political parties do things that.... Political parties for the most part are masters of their own destiny subject to what legislation requires of them. If there's one thing that we can actually be doing that's going to make political parties try to find women candidates who are out there and do want to run, what is the big take-away?

[Kayleigh Erickson]

I think the one thing, if we don't implement a quota for all parties, is to work within your parties to increase women's representation and to enforce the mechanisms that you are putting in place in your own political party to increase women's representation overall, because we know it's not just a one-party issue. It's an issue within every party.