IN THE NEWS
March 25, 2004

Response to "Electing more women for the NDP"

Dear Ms. Speirs,

Thank you for your letter of February 24, and the opportunity to focus on the critical issue of electing more women to the House of Commons in the next election. Let me begin by offering my commitment that in the upcoming federal election, the NDP will elect the strongest-ever contingent of women to our caucus. The NDP is on the move, and we expect to win more seats than ever before in the next election. I am committed to ensuring that women comprise a critical mass of that caucus, and will help change the face of Canada.

It is a huge challenge for women to run for politics. We recognize that the barriers women face when entering politics are very real, and that getting more women elected is part of the larger picture of engaging women in politics by making all aspects of this project more relevant to women. The job of finding women who are willing to take on that challenge is more difficult than ever, but one that is so important to building the country we want to live in. I’d like to give you a brief sense of some of the things the NDP is doing to attract and recruit women candidates in the next federal election.

First, thank you for your recognition of the NDP’s policy of freezing nominations until there is a woman or a candidate from another under-represented group is confirmed to be seeking the nomination. In rare instances, a riding may apply for an exemption to our Affirmative Action policy, by documenting that a thorough search has been undertaken, and that a genuine, documented effort has been made to attract an affirmative action candidate to the race. Our federal Candidate Search Committee, chaired by Evelyn Gigantes and Judy Wasylycia-Leis, takes this initiative very seriously, and has in fact turned down requests for nomination meetings, when it was felt that more work could be done to attract and encourage candidates from under-represented groups.

Our commitment to attracting more women and candidates from under-represented groups is a major focus at all levels of our party. As Leader, I am passionately engaged in the recruitment of women candidates. I make telephone calls to potential women candidates almost every day to encourage them to run. I also raise the issue of our Affirmative Action policy and our commitment to recruiting great women candidates, at every opportunity so that the depth of our commitment to our Affirmative Action policy is recognized across this party. I am proud of our commitment to running a diverse, representative slate of candidates in the next election. I intend to ensure that we honour that commitment.

Our NDP Caucus is also very involved in candidate search, and in recruiting women candidates in particular. I would like to highlight the work of Judy Wasylicia-Leis in particular, one of the Chairs of the Federal Candidate Search Committee, and the NDP Critic on Status of Women. Judy’s commitment to speaking with potential women candidates to lend support, and talk through the challenges that women face when thinking about running for office, has been an enormous help in recruiting women candidates.

I would also like to highlight the work of Alexa McDonough, our former leader in speaking to women, and providing names of women that the party should contact to really encourage to seek an NDP nomination.

While I could mention the work of the entire NDP caucus, and indeed the work of Libby Davies, Bev Desjarlais, and all of our M.P.s continues to be an enormous resource for us, I would also like to take a moment to acknowledge the work of M.P. Wendy Lill. Wendy, who has served her constituents in Dartmouth, and Canadians in general, with incredible dedication since her election in 1997, will not be seeking re-election this time. We are so pleased that part of Wendy’s legacy is that there will be a woman named Susan MacAlpine-Gillis running in her seat. Wendy Lill will be greatly missed. I do look forward to working with Susan MacAlpine-Gillis in the House of Commons.

Our Director of Organization and her staff, including the Candidate Search Coordinator, are extremely committed to finding women candidates, who will not only win the race for the NDP nomination, but will also win their seat in the general election, and will help make up our next NDP Caucus. Part of their strategy has been to organize brainstorming sessions with different groups of women from across the country to identify women from all walks of life who could be encouraged to run for the NDP. They work with people in every region of our country to make sure that the candidates we run in the next election reflect the diversity of our communities, and our nation.

Finally, women in all communities across this country are working to find great women to run as NDP candidates. This past weekend, Debbie Field of Foodshare Toronto and Judy Rebick helped host a dinner and discussion that brought a group of progressive women together both to recruit women candidates for this election, as well as to strategize around involving more women in the political process. I look forward to seeing the fruits of that endeavor, and to seeing more events like that in the weeks to come.

I hope that this helps portray the depth of my commitment to this issue, and the commitment of the NDP to ensuring that we run the most women candidates ever, and then go on to elect more women candidates than we have ever done before. When the NDP is in the House of Commons building the kind of country that Canadians deserve, women must be a force in that process. Please also accept my greatest admiration to you and Equal Voice, for keeping the issue of women’s role in governing our county on the agenda, and in the public consciousness.

I look forward to meeting this challenge with you.
Sincerely,
Jack Layton