Status of Women committee  We are actively working to secure commitments for three Daughters of the Vote with both our private and public sector partners, so that, in fact, we would do that in 2020 and 2021, and really try to institute it as a major flagship program for Equal Voice. We believe there are 338 amazing, politically diverse, interesting women who are ready to take the challenge each and every year—of all ages.

Status of Women committee  There are consequences in every election. We have a House of Commons now in which two-thirds of the members are new, non-incumbent, first-time electees, and we have 27% female representation there. The possible turnover in a House in which two-thirds of members are new is very low.

Status of Women committee  Yes.

Status of Women committee  I think it's a question of professional autonomy. In your neck of the woods, Louise Carbert did a very interesting analysis of women in Atlantic Canada. She found that because of the overrepresentation of women in the public service, a lot of them felt that even if they had the right to run, they were compromising their professional trajectories or the trajectories of their partners, their husbands; and they really couldn't.

Status of Women committee  I think— Sorry, Eleni.

Status of Women committee  I think we have to model 21st century workplaces. In fact, the Manning Institute commissioned a survey a number of years ago. They interviewed female community leaders, mid-level professionals in their late thirties to late fifties. Women did not say they didn't want to run because of a lack of interest.

Status of Women committee  I would also ask, why didn't you run at an earlier age, and what led you to hold back. I think that's an important part of the conversation about investing in younger women.

Status of Women committee  With 150 years of lopsided, overwhelmingly male representation—with some good men among them, of course—I think we have a moral and ethical obligation to ensure that we make sufficient efforts to connect women to political spaces.

Status of Women committee  From the perspective of Daughters of the Vote, as our signature initiative, we were incredibly deliberate about who we chose, in part because of the kinds of questions we asked, and then what criteria we applied to the evaluation of those questions. I think you certainly have to invest earlier in communities and in women who don't necessarily see themselves fully reflected in the political process.

Status of Women committee  We did an analysis in the last election that suggested that there were 97 ridings where if you wanted to vote for one the three major parties, you couldn't, so think about that. A third of Canadians were going to the polls and they didn't have a single woman to choose from. We just feel this is profoundly unfair to Canadians, not just women but to Canadians, who, in fact, do want to see more women in politics across party lines.

Status of Women committee  I think opportunity presents itself in all kinds of ways. How we get there and how parties get there is a discussion that is distinct within each party, but also more applicable to what the mechanisms are, like incentives, etc.

Status of Women committee  We believe that any woman who wants to serve in public life and pursue elected office absolutely deserves a fair shot at it, just as with their male counterparts. We don't have a lens in terms of issues or ideology; we're really about representation. This is a democracy. Unfortunately, we've suffered for centuries now, some 151 years, from lopsided representation, and we believe women are critical to every single political party and political mechanism that exists.

Status of Women committee  I do think we have to invite women into politics. I see it all the time in multiple ways. Women are formidable community leaders but are not connecting to formal political spaces, whether it's riding associations, party conventions, or what have you. There is a specific cohort of women across party lines who are very engaged, but when you look at those who are disengaged....

Status of Women committee  We create critical networking opportunities that bring in women across party lines through our 15 chapters, and also the campus chapters, where we really insist that the steering committees of each of those chapters have representation across party lines. A woman who might lean one way or another can then see themselves in the composition of our Equal Voice chapters, so that, again, women are bringing themselves in based upon who they might know or recognize in the community.

Status of Women committee  Yes. I think we would say that no one woman should be mandated to represent all women. I think there's tremendous diversity in the panellists you've heard from, and there will continue to be. With Daughters of the Vote as an example, again, we wanted to make sure we weren't mandating a very narrow subset of women to be the champions for all women.