Mr. Speaker, I am proud to stand tonight to speak to an issue that I asked the Minister of Democratic Institutions about a few weeks ago during question period. Specifically, I asked whether the government would support my private member's bill, the candidate gender equity act, when it comes up for a vote at second reading.
Before getting to my questions for the government, let me start by going over the details of Bill C-237 and the reasons why I put it forward.
While Canadians felt pride when the Prime Minister announced that his cabinet would be Canada's first gender-balanced cabinet, we really cannot lose sight of the fact that women still only hold 26% of the seats in the House of Commons, and this is the closest we have ever been to gender parity. This means that almost three out of every four MPs are male and Canada now ranks 61st in the world when it comes to the proportion of women in our national legislature, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. While we were ranked 21st in 1991, we have fallen behind countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, and El Salvador so it is a poor record.
This is more than mere statistics. These numbers mean something. The politics of presence is essential for any well-functioning democracy, and the decisions made in this place directly reflect the perspectives of those who propose and vote on decisions in the House. If our Parliament were equal and more diverse, our democracy would better represent Canadians and their aspirations.
That is why I put forward the candidate gender equity act. Academic research, some that I have actually published myself, shows that women face significant barriers and unfair biases in the processes used by political parties to select their candidates. It is not the voters that are the problem, it is the parties that are the problem. That is what Bill C-237 would do. It would incentivize parties to recruit more women candidates and move toward parity in their candidate lists. We would incentivize this by using the existing public subsidies that parties receive from taxpayers. A party's post-election rebate would be gradually reduced if it did not have at least 45% women candidates, and then of course the subsidy would be further reduced as the party moved further from parity.
I was disheartened that the minister said that the current government would oppose the bill, at least now. However, today, where the government has accepted our opposition day motion, our suggestions for how we might change the committee studying electoral reform, I am perhaps hopeful that maybe the minister will also change her position on the bill.
I would like to outline a few things.
First, the bill that I put forward was formulated by experts and drawn from laws from other countries. For example, Ireland passed a similar law in 2012 and under this law, the Irish increased the number of women candidates in the election by 90%, and believe it or not, increased the number of women in their legislature by 40% with just one year of this single law.
Second, this law could work under any voting system. We will be changing our electoral system here, from what I understand. This law would work under any voting system, so it would not constrain us in that sense.
Third, what is most important is that this would not be a quota. I have heard from this side of the House and the other side of the House that it is a quota. It is not a quota, and in fact, in no way would it interfere with the internal workings of the parties.
This is an important measure and I look forward to the response from the other side.