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We view some of those reforms as essential if more women are to be elected to the Ontario legislature than the disappointing 21 per cent returned in the most recent provincial vote. We realize that your reforms are intended to benefit all voters by creating a more responsive Legislature. But we think that replacing our first-past-the-post electoral system with proportional representation would achieve not just a better reflection of the popular vote for each party —it would also provide a Legislature that more closely mirrors the makeup of the population. Women now are 52 per cent of Canadians, but in Parliament and legislatures across the country they seldom achieve more than about a fifth of seats. Most other modern democracies have adopted systems of proportional representation and more women have been elected as a result. However, countries such as Sweden, Norway and Belgium, where women have reached high levels of elected influence, do not rely on the voting system alone. They have also adopted affirmative action measures, such as alternating male and female candidates on party lists. Equal Voice is not yet advocating quotas. But we do ask you to consider the policy of the Labour party in Scotland and Wales, where VOLUNTARY affirmative action has greatly increased the numbers of elected women. In Wales, in 1997, the Labour party twinned ridings, requiring each “twin” to nominate one man and one woman. By last year’s Welsh Assembly elections, parties no longer felt the need to employ affirmative action. Women had made the leap into politics, become accepted—and Wales became the first jurisdiction in the world to elect 50 per cent women to its national assembly. At the least, we’d urge Ontario’s political parties to adopt the policy of the New Democratic Party towards nominating women. The NDP “freezes” nominations until riding associations can prove a genuine search has been made for a woman,or a nominee from another under-represented group. The NDP regularly nominates more women than the other parties, including your own Liberals. So we ask you to add a recommendation urging voluntary affirmative action by political parties to the agenda of your reform commission. We congratulate you for saying you want to get the influence of big money out of politics. We’d like to see you extend the strict limits you are proposing for election and leadership contests to the nomination process as well. The prohibitive expense of nomination contests is a major barrier to women at this entry level of politics. As you know, Ontario is one of five provinces considering electoral reform. British Columbia, Quebec, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island have already launched their citizen forums. We urge you to do so quickly, and we look forward to an opportunity to present our views at greater length when Ontario’s consultations are under way. Sincerely, Please reply to: Rosemary Speirs, 1815 Altona Road, Pickering, Ontario, L1V 1M6, 905-509-2777, or info@equalvoice.ca
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