Status of Women Committee on June 19th, 2018

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

It's interesting, because that is pretty much the same as what we have in the House of Commons, yet yet when StatsCan was here a few weeks ago, they said more women are likely to run and be elected municipally than they are provincially or federally. That's obviously not the case, which blows my whole line of questioning, to be honest, because, of course, we want to see more women run at all levels of government.

I'll go to the FCM and maybe they can comment on one thing I also find quite interesting.

When I was running for the first time, one of the things I heard continually was the idea that I should start at the municipal level and then run for something else. I'm sure my male counterparts probably didn't hear that, but for some reason it was considered a training ground for women. The thing was, that's not where my interest was. I have so much respect for municipal politicians because it's a very different world, but it's not my interest level.

I don't know if you want to comment on those kinds of comments that I got as a woman.

Mr. Serré, Mr. Fraser, did you guys get those? No.

I'm wondering if you have any comments to make on that aspect.

[Yolaine Kirlew]

Great. Thank you.

Similar to what you're saying, my interest was always in federal politics as a life goal. As a child, I wanted to be a politician, but moving from the city to the rural context, it was very difficult to participate. To me, the order of government closest to the people to effect change right away was the municipal realm. At the stage and season of life that I was in, with young kids, it made more sense for me to be a part of that and understand how that works and how that connects to federal politics.

That curiosity has been dynamic. In all my learning of politics in university, we never focused on the municipal level at all. I'm glad that I did start off in municipal offices. Now I have access through FCM to the broader national scope of how we all connect and intersect as an order of government and grapple with national challenges and find local solutions to them.

I would say don't knock it until you've tried it. It really is a dynamic place to be accountable to the people and to make sure that you're honing your sense of connection and your willingness to put yourself out there and defend and stand up for positive cause and social change.

If that's what can break that barrier and break the ice, I would say let's be honest and encourage it. If it can be a great place to develop talent, let's not slight it; let's embrace it—

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Please, I was not slighting it in any way, shape, or form. I have nothing but the greatest respect for municipal politicians, because I believe they get a lot more flack on more grassroots things than we do. I totally have nothing but the greatest respect for anybody, actually, who runs for political office at any level.

To your point, you made a comment about being interested in federal politics, but because of where you lived.... Do you see living in a rural area as a barrier to being involved in politics?

[Yolaine Kirlew]

I've seen it as an opportunity, actually. Again, it's just my perspective and my world view that you can take what is in front of you and make it as dynamic as you are inclined to.

In co-operating with my family and in co-operating with my community, I looked at it from the perspective of how the municipal political landscape translates into the federal conversation and vice versa, and FCM has been the only voice, I would say, that is nationally connecting the municipal lens with federal issues and finding solutions to what across Canada many communities face, rural and urban, by finding common ground and coming up with solutions that can echo the sentiment of change and make our country a better place to live.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Two of the areas that I represent now are the only areas in the country where the mayor of the municipality, the mayor of the town, the MLA, and the MP are all women. We have two, and we're the only two in the country, to the best of my knowledge. We've asked why it is that this little area in rural Nova Scotia is able to attract women to seek these offices.

I'd like your comments on that kind of dynamic as well, because it is a very different thing to see all of the leaders and politicians in the area being women. Actually, the mayor of one of the towns is a female mayor, and she's the only woman on council, and I am the only woman elected in Nova Scotia federally, so it's a really odd dynamic.

[Carole Saab]

Congratulations. That's fantastic. Kudos on that.

You've heard a lot about it and we could talk a lot about it, and we'd be happy to send more information about the scope of the systemic barriers to women engaging in politics at all orders of government across the board.

In terms of one hypothesis for the question you're asking around why that's the case, we've identified some pretty significant areas where we can do some tangible work to blow through these kinds of barriers to women, but it requires resources, it requires mentorship, it requires effective networking, it requires effective programming, and it requires partnerships to deliver those in a comprehensive way.

As an organization, we've targeted our efforts in that regard, and it has proven successful at a small scale. We're trying to scale up and continue that work. I don't know your community very well, but I suspect you have a lot of the ingredients at play that have contributed to what is a highly impressive lineup of women.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Excellent. Thank you very much.

Rachel Harder has given her time to Blake Richards. Blake, you have four minutes.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a comment and a couple of questions.

First of all, the comment I want to make is for you, Ms. Jordan. You mentioned that you had sort of been pushed when you talked about running federally compared to municipally. I'm not certain if that is a male/female thing, because it was something that I heard as well when I thought about running.

I personally took it as there being a lot of people who get into politics now and maybe see it as a career. They start with the municipal level as a springboard and then move to other things in building name recognition. I would argue that maybe that's not necessarily the right reason for going in politics.

My comment back to people at the time was, “No, actually, I'm getting into politics because I care about certain issues, and they happen to be federal issues.” I don't know; maybe it was the same in your case, or maybe it wasn't. I don't know, but I would point out that it happened in my case as well.

I'll start with questions for Elections Canada.

You mentioned some of the rates of voting in your opening remarks. You mentioned the rates of elected candidates. You made the comment that you didn't feel that it was in voting that more that could be done, but that maybe it could be in terms of the elected officials. You did mention, of course, that it was going in the right direction and that we were seeing improvements and increases there.

I noticed in this provincial election in Ontario that occurred about two weeks ago and brought in the Doug Ford government that almost 40% of those elected to that legislature are females, which I think is the highest percentage in the country. Obviously it's another example of moving in the right direction, which is great to see.

The question I want to ask has a couple of parts to it. Given that we're seeing those improvement rates and given that you mentioned in response to Mr. Stewart that some of the data may not be as good as it could be, do we have any sense as to...? We know what proportion of parliaments or legislatures are made up of women; that's easy to figure out. Are you aware of anything that tracks the success rate of female candidates compared to the success rate of male candidates? In other words, are women being elected in greater proportion when they do put their names forward, or are men being elected at greater proportions? That might give us some sense of any biases that exist elsewhere.

Do you have any thoughts or data that you can share with us? As well, I don't know if the Federation of Canadian Municipalities has any information. If either one of you has information, I'd love to hear it.

[Susan Torosian]

I'm sorry; I think it's a great question, but unfortunately it's not something that we have looked at.

As you know, nomination contests are run predominantly by the parties. We have a very minor role—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I'm not talking about nomination races. I'm talking about when people—

[Susan Torosian]

When they are running as an official candidate...?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

—are chosen as candidates by their parties. Is there a different success rate for women in a general election, as compared to men?

[Susan Torosian]

We haven't done any analysis on that.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Would the FCM have any information on that?

[Carole Saab]

At a municipal level, in 2015 we worked very hard to try to solicit that kind of information in local government. To add to the challenge in terms of my questions here around data as a barrier, part of our challenge in doing this is that the data is collected very unevenly by provinces across the country, and in really problematic ways, in terms of getting any sense of comparables from a national perspective.

As you engage that issue federally, certainly our perspective locally would be that ensuring this is harmonized across the country in a way that enables comparables would be critical to the equation.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Okay. It sounds like something that would be a valuable thing.

[Carole Saab]

Absolutely.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Madam Chair, is there any more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You're shut down. You're done.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

You don't give us a long enough time in this committee.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I apologize, Blake. Maybe you can come back and we'll try it again. Then you'll have eight minutes: four from today and four next time.

For the final four minutes, Emmanuella Lambropoulos, you have the floor.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thanks for being with us today.

My main questions are for Elections Canada. They are along the lines of what Sean was asking about earlier.

Do you have any contact at all with the EDAs of each riding?

[Susan Torosian]

I think Jeff could best answer that.

[Jeff Merrett]

We deal with electoral district associations all the time. We do annual training sessions across Canada. They all have annual filing requirements with us, so we're in regular contact with them, mostly with their financial agents.