Status of Women Committee on June 12th, 2018

[Jeanette Ashe]

Yes. On financial incentives, I suppose that if parties don't select a certain per cent of women candidates or candidates from other politically marginalized groups as well, you could have a threshold of 10%, or some wiggle room, so that if they don't select a certain per cent, then they don't receive a subsidy. That could be in safe seats or, if you wanted, all seats. That's up to you.

That would be a financial incentive. It's a way of framing it that makes it sound more positive than “quota”.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

We'd have to go back to a system of the number of votes you get?

[Jeanette Ashe]

Yes, you could do it like that. There are different iterations of this. Quite a few countries do use financial incentivization now. The two most recent ones would be Ireland and France, Ireland most recently. It's had some success.

Bill C-237 was modelled after France's and Ireland's examples of incentivization. You could pull some threads from that, I suppose.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Okay.

You referenced Bill C-237, the candidate gender equity act, which did not get supported in Parliament. What elements of that bill would have supported the election of women? What pieces of that should we be looking at in terms of how in the next Parliament we want to bring back something that is workable? What from Bill C-237 would that be?

[Jeanette Ashe]

I think the focus is on incentivizing political parties. It's just recognizing the key role that political parties play in the recruitment and the selection process. If parties are made aware that if they don't elect a certain percentage of women or other politically marginalized groups, they'll lose a certain per cent of their subsidy.... That could be decided and negotiated by Parliament.

It's just about getting back to parties, to parties taking responsibility for the outcome of selection processes, because it really does reflect systemic institutional discrimination, right? If there weren't any institutional discrimination within the party selection process, then we would see a more or less random even distribution in terms of sex and other under-represented qualities across the board, and we don't see that. You have to really delve into the secret garden of nomination processes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have one minute left.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

You were talking about violence against women and violence against elected officials in terms of the physical violence, and also in terms of the social media violence, with which I have had first-hand experience, as have many women. If we address the cultural reality of violence against women and put a real effort into their financial security and their social security, will that have an impact and help in reducing the idea that it's okay to launch an attack against a woman, either anonymously or actually physically?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

We have about 10 seconds for this. There was no time left, but we have 10 seconds for anyone who wants to answer.

[Prof. Sylvia Bashevkin]

I'm not sure, really, that it's going to be easy to shut down social media attacks against women, but it seems to me that acknowledging that they occur is way better than denying that it's part of Canadian political culture.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

That's excellent. Thank you very much.

Sean, we're going to leave you with three minutes.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Okay. I'll try to be quick.

One of the things we've heard quite a bit about over the course of your testimony is the need to improve transparency and accountability in the nomination process. I'm curious about what that looks like, aside from having disclosure of data about the immutable characteristics of the candidates who run. Are there things we can do other than requiring parties to disclose data to, say, Elections Canada?

I see you nodding your head, Ms. Ashe.

[Jeanette Ashe]

Yes, okay. How much money is spent in nomination races would be something that would be considered important.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

For the panel, are there other things we can do to improve that accountability and transparency?

[Prof. Sylvia Bashevkin]

The Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing, after the 1988 federal election, had a very detailed look at exactly how we could open up this process, including the purchase of bulk party memberships, the timing of party nomination meetings, and shutting down child care early when women candidates are affected. There's a lot out there.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Excellent.

I have a quick question for Dr. Carbert on recruiting women in rural communities.

Thanks very much. This is a fascinating concept for me, representing a rural area and being an alumnus of Dalhousie as well.

With regard to rural nominations, it strikes me that they often have smaller party memberships than big urban centres do. Is there an opportunity for us to tap into that ability for women to go recruit new members and potentially commandeer these smaller memberships? Does this present an opportunity in rural Canada to beat the national average despite the historically opposite trend?

[Prof. Louise Carbert]

That's an interesting positive suggestion. I like your question, because it gives me a chance to point out that the nomination races across Canada are so very different. Usually we hear about the high-profile, well-financed races in the major urban centres, such as Toronto and Montreal, and yet there's such variation across the country. As you say, a lot of these nomination races are determined by 15 or 20 people. You're right. It would be very easy to take charge and commandeer a nomination race and put a woman in. It could happen.

That possibility is there. It's exciting. I think the problem is that sometimes a nomination race in a rural area is more like collusion among local elites and a local establishment in terms of deciding which candidate should go forward, and the funding flows to that candidate.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I have about 30 seconds. Is there an opportunity for the federal government to fund community organizations to recruit women in areas where they could potentially win these nominations? Is that a strategy you think might be effective to get women's names on the ballot? I'm thinking about Equal Voice, for example, or another organization like that.

[Prof. Sylvia Bashevkin]

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has been running an initiative very similar to that.

[Prof. Louise Carbert]

And there are campaign schools.

[Prof. Sylvia Bashevkin]

Yes. That can be expanded. I think it can have a real impact.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Excellent. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I was just advised that they are coming too, so we do have some great witnesses coming up.

I would really like to thank the four of you—Jane, Jeanette, Sylvia, and Louise—for coming today and providing us this insight.

We're going to suspend for about two minutes, and then we will be back with our next set of panellists.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Welcome back to the status of women committee. We are on our second hour now of the panels for today on barriers facing women in politics. I'm pleased to welcome our next four guests.

We have Rosie Campbell, professor of politics, Birkbeck, University of London, by video conference. We have Sarah Childs, professor of politics and gender, Birkbeck, University of London, also on video conference. We have Melanee Thomas, associate professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, also by video conference, and in person we have William Cross, professor, Department of Political Science at Carleton University.

I'm also checking on this. Rosie and Sarah, you're together. We are going to provide seven minutes, but we want to make sure we have ample time for questions, so if we can reduce any of that, it would be fantastic.

I'm going to start off with Rosie and Sarah for seven minutes.

Go ahead, please.

[Professor Sarah Childs, Professor, Politics and Gender, Birkbeck, University of London, As an Individual]

Good evening.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I want to interrupt. I was just advised you are appearing separately and not together, so you are each being provided seven minutes.