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Jun 15, 2006
Legislature needs more women, party leaders all
agree
They vow more nominees for '07 vote
-Ontario's record `not good', group says
Jun. 15, 2006. 01:00 AM
ROBERT BENZIE
QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU CHIEF
They rarely agree, but Ontario's three political leaders united
yesterday in the need to elect more women to the Legislature.
In what was billed a "landmark," Premier Dalton McGuinty,
Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory and NDP Leader Howard
Hampton interrupted proceedings for 15 minutes to sing the same
tune.
"
All of us need to ask women to do one more thing, and it's this:
Consider choosing political life. Yes, it's challenging and, yes,
the cynics have done their best to tarnish the work we politicians
do, but we in this assembly can tell you there are few places where
you can serve so many, so often," said McGuinty.
"
I don't think we can really say that we have achieved what we set
out to do with important laws like the Charter of Rights and other
human rights legislation when the body which makes laws in Ontario
so under-represents women," said Tory.
"
Too few women hear the message that they are welcome in politics.
Too many obstacles are placed in the paths of women in politics," said
Hampton.
All three leaders promised more female candidates for the
Oct. 4, 2007, election.
Currently, 17 of 71 Liberal MPPs are women, as are five
of 24 Tories, and two of eight NDP. That's 24 women in
a 103-seat
Legislature;
redistribution expands the number of seats to 107 in '07.
McGuinty pledged that candidates in half the seats not
held by his party would be women, meaning the Liberals
should
have at
least 34 females.
Tory said his party would exceed the Liberals' 34 and Hampton
also vowed to field a healthy slate of women candidates.
The promises and speeches were thanks to the work of Equal
Voice, a non-partisan advocate for more women in electoral
politics
across Canada.
"
Ontario's record has not been good. Only 24 women sit in the Legislature," said
Equal Voice chair Rosemary Speirs, a former Toronto Star
reporter and columnist at Queen's Park and former Ottawa bureau
chief.
"
But we hope that is beginning to change today. We threw out our
challenge to the three party leaders to nominate more women in
2007 and all three have taken the pledge," she said.
Flanking Speirs at her news conference were Tory, Ontario
Liberal Party president Deb Matthews, former PC finance
minister Janet
Ecker, MPP Andrea Horwath (NDP-Hamilton-East), and
Democratic Renewal Minister Marie Bountrogianni. MPP
Christine Elliott
(PC-Whitby-Ajax) also attended.
"
What the three party leaders said in the Legislature is a landmark
change in attitude and it's on the record," said Speirs,
who wrote the leaders April 27 to request the historic commitment.
"
We know that many women hesitate to run for political office because
they see it as a rough male-dominated game," she said, stressing
Equal Voice opposes forcing parties to field a certain number of
women. "When you start setting up quotas for women,
you open a whole can of worms about who else would have quotas."
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