Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would agree with that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I come from a very emotional and animated Newfoundland family of the Peckford ilk. I know all about emotion in debates and I appreciate some of your sentiments. Where I think it's problematic for us—and I know you know this, but just to have it on the record—is when it looks like bullying, when it feels like bullying, when there's humiliation, denigration, and a diminishment of one's voice.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think you're very capable parliamentarians, and I think with some work you could marry the two, if you will. I think it's the toll of 28-hour commutes that is particularly objectionable. If there's a way to cluster more riding time, apart from summers, obviously an extended period in the riding around the winter holiday, Christmas, as it's known by many.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There was an interesting study commissioned by the Manning conference, in fact, undertaken by André Turcotte, a well-known, widely respected pollster. He interviewed a small subset of leading businesswomen, many of whom said they were less concerned about work-life balance issues in terms of contemplating a run for federal office, and much more concerned about the culture of politics and whether or not they could thrive in that environment, and whether or not they could recreate the success they were having as leading businesswomen.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Maybe I'll ask Grace, who's on the line. She's just finished a 15-country study, where she interviewed 90 female elected representatives from countries the world over. She could speak to some of the insights that elected representatives gave her in terms of the deterrent effect and the sustainability of parliamentary life.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you so much for being here today. It's a pleasure to see so many of you around the table. As you likely know, Equal Voice Canada is the only national multipartisan organization dedicated to the election of more women. We communicate with tens of thousands of Canadians on a monthly basis who care deeply about gender equality.

Status of Women committee  It would be a good reason to maintain it and potentially increase it.

Status of Women committee  Equal Voice is entirely funded by the private sector, except for the Experiences program, which is a specific initiative for which we receive Status of Women Canada funding. There have been some conversations within Equal Voice about whether or not the public funding mechanism at the federal level to support political parties could be used as an incentive to ensure that more women run and win.

Status of Women committee  Giovanna and I will both answer this. I remain very concerned that media representations of women politicians are such that younger women are entirely turned off from the political process. I think we have to really examine how the media in Canada represents gutsy younger women who are part of our political system.

Status of Women committee  I'm going to allow Giovanna to answer this one.

Status of Women committee  I would say, in addition, that I think there are some systemic barriers that women are up against, and I think you have all lived those. I think we have to have an honest conversation about what those are at the nomination level in terms of media representation, in terms of access to financing.

Status of Women committee  I think it's obvious, given where you work, and where we are, that we have far from arrived. I think until all of our legislatures have a minimum of 50% of women in them, we cannot say that equality is here. I think it's incumbent upon all of us to recognize that these institutions are ones women look up to.

Status of Women committee  There have in fact been positive changes in the system. As well, a lot of research is being done in the Scandinavian countries. What we know is that once there is a critical mass, that is, over 30%, public policy outcomes and the focus of debate in legislatures changes. It's both a cultural thing--the culture of the legislature is more conducive to issues that women care about--and there also tends to be more collaboration.

Status of Women committee  Okay. Well, in fact I would say that Giovanna has been working very hard on what we've called the “Be Her or Support Her” campaign. It's a campaign that we intend to roll out nationally and more formally in the coming months, but it is really designed to encourage women not only to consider themselves as candidates, but to also think strategically about how they can support another woman in getting elected.

Status of Women committee  Those are some of the statistics that we are all up against collectively in this room and elsewhere. We really appreciate the fact that the status of women committee is doing this kind of work to look very strategically at where women fare overall in Canada. At the political level, the good news is that in the last election more women ran for office than they had in any other federal election in Canada's history.