Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House today to draw your attention, somewhat belatedly, to International Women's Day and comment on the place of women in politics.
In the latest study by the Interparliamentary Union about men and women in politics and "unfinished democracy", we read that women today have only 11.7 per cent of the seats in parliaments throughout the world. Here in this House we are not doing much better, since women have only 18 per cent of the seats.
Much remains to be done to remedy the under-representation of women in politics, a situation that is one of the most serious flaws of our modern democracies.
To improve the situation, all political parties should follow the example of Scandinavian parties and adopt measures to promote the integration of women in politics. The Scandinavian experience has been successful, since that region has the highest percentage of female parliamentarians at over 37 per cent.