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Women for Fair Voting

 

Canada ranks 51st in the World in representation of women, trailing behind Afghanistan (27th) and Iraq (33rd).

 

To see our current rankings check the
IPU site.

FAIR VOTING ELECTS MORE WOMEN...NATURALLY

  • The top countries for representation of women use proportional representation (PR).
  • The majority of the world’s democracies use one form or other
    of proportional representation. This includes all of Europe. Also Scotland, Wales, Ireland use PR for their parliaments.
  • All PR countries use lists—and most lists are used to elect 100% of representatives—not merely the 30-50% recently proposed in Canada and the provinces.
  • In PR countries, candidates are democratically nominated and
    elected to the lists.
  • Lists are transparent, the voter can see right away if a party is
    fairly nominating candidates.
  • Under our current FPTP system, nominations are often not
    transparent and often under the control of backroom boys.
  • On average, 80% of the time, the backroom boys choose men
  • But 80% of Canadians want to elect more women.
  • Our FPTP system is not transparent, fails to represent women,
    minorities, in fact…the majority of us who are underrepresented.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO GET MORE WOMEN ELECTED

 

1. Talk to as many people as you can about how our present system keeps us from electing more women.

2. Support groups such as Fair Vote and Equal Voice (Doris Anderson fund)

3. Visit your MMP/ MP and ask that he / she publicly support the voting system change.

4. Talk to your friends and neighbours about the need to change our system to one with proportionality (proportionality gives personality to our parliament and legislatures ).

5. If you are a member of a party, ask that they make a greater attempt to nominate women in the ridings
(this is the bottleneck for women under the present system--we could have more women right now if local riding associations wanted to nominated them.)

Why does the present system not work?

Why do Proportional systems work for women?

TALKING POINTS

  • We have reached a "glass ceiling" of approximately 20%-25% representation of women in parliament across Canada.
  • At the rate we are electing women, it will be over a hundred years before we reach parity.
  • Canada ranks 51st in the world in representation of women in parliament. We trail countries such as Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan etc.
  • Because of this, national, regional and local priorities i.e. how resources are allocated are typically defined without meaningful input from women.
  • The United Nations has stated that we need at least 30% representation for our voices to be heard.
  • Studies of proportional representation reveal that it sufficiently
    alters the political structure to enable women to transcend the 'winner-take-all' competition for votes we now see in Canada.
  • Changing a country's electoral system often represents a far more realistic goal to work towards than dramatically changing the culture's view of women.
    Sources for these statements

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