Status of Women committee  I think there are some people in general who do not aspire to have a political career. We find in our estimates that levels of ambition for a political career are actually really low. We see ambition for public office as a really low event. In our most recent sample, 5% of men

Status of Women committee  On role models, electing women makes more women interested in politics. That is straight up. We can find evidence for that throughout all OECD democracies. There's very clear evidence from Sweden, starting in the 1970s, that when a party started implementing seriously a voluntary

Status of Women committee  Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I don't want to repeat many of the things that I think my co-panellists and others who are testifying might be inclined to say. Instead, I want to address what I think is the real root problem of all of these barriers, and

Electoral Reform committee  The variance is going to be huge, and it will be determined by each political party. I can tell you that there is at least one party in Sweden that will make it fifty-fifty, but there are a bunch of parties in Sweden that won't.

Electoral Reform committee  Because parties set the list, it comes down to the party to figure out how many women they want on the list. There's no hard and fast rule. There really isn't.

Electoral Reform committee  No, it doesn't. That's right.

Electoral Reform committee  On recruitment, there are concrete steps that could be taken that would have payoff down the road. We know that political parties are a vessel that recruits candidates and forwards them for election. We know that party members are much more likely to be men than they are to be

Electoral Reform committee  I have the figures for all OECD democracies, meaning Europe and a few other countries. For list proportional representation countries with a legislated gender quota, their legislatures are 32% women. If they have a voluntary party quota with list PR, their legislatures are 29% wo

Electoral Reform committee  That is not true. At the provincial level, we have a government caucus that is 47%—

Electoral Reform committee  Yes, but the provinces tell you that parties can do it differently if they wanted to.

Electoral Reform committee  I will defer to my own premier when she says that these spaces for women and for other historically under-represented groups do not happen organically. They are not going to happen organically under our system and they are not going to happen organically just because you change t

Electoral Reform committee  Yes. In terms of achieving representational equity, I see no good reason why it is not happening now, other than things that simply cannot be defended. It is literally 169 women. This is all somebody would need to recruit. It boggles my mind that we can't find them. It boggles m

Electoral Reform committee  —then why would they under a different electoral system? That is the point.

Electoral Reform committee  No. My question is to every political party. Why aren't you doing it now? I don't see any good reason.

Electoral Reform committee  I think this current process that allows me to ask every single political party “Why aren't you doing it now?” is certainly worthwhile, simply because that question is now in the public record.