Honourable senators, this year marks the one hundredth anniversary of the first woman elected to our House of Commons. Her name was Agnes Campbell Macphail, and she was elected as a member from Grey Southeast in my province of Ontario in the 1921 federal election.

Building on her training as a teacher and her work as an organizer for the United Farmers of Ontario, Ms. Macphail fought for family allowances, equal access to divorce and equal pay. She made significant contributions to the creation of Old Age Security and to prison reform, and she was Canada’s first woman delegate to the League of Nations in 1929. In her remarkable career, she would be re-elected four times to Parliament and later was also one of the first two women elected to the Ontario legislature.

Ms. Macphail sat with the Progressives. It is interesting that 58 Progressives were elected in the 1921 election, but they refused to take on the role of official opposition, as they did not want to organize decision making along party lines; a kind of precursor to today’s Senate.

Honourable senators, over the past century our country has come to embrace the goal of gender equality, which we now strive to achieve in all our institutions. Yet, today we see that women make up just 30% of our Parliament, which gives Canada the dismal ranking of fifty-second country in the world. We need to do better.

Unlike in 1921, today there is no shortage of qualified women wanting to run, and Canadians are very willing to vote for women. However, a key problem today is that political parties disproportionately nominate women in other parties’ strongholds, not those of their own party. Many women are running for their party in ridings where their party cannot win.

As we contemplate another election later this year, Canada’s political parties need to tell us what their goals and their processes are with respect to recruiting and nominating women and other under-represented groups. In fact, the reporting requirements under the Canada Elections Act should be changed to allow the gender of candidates and riding results — including in stronghold ridings — to be tracked and compared. Canada’s taxpayer-funded financing schemes should reward parties that increase women’s representation or sanction those that do not.

The 100-year trial period that parties have had since Ms. Macphail was elected has now come to an end. If the parties themselves will not step up, we in the Senate must take the lead role to make Parliament more accountable and representative.

On that note, I wish a happy anniversary to all the women in Canada who have been elected to Parliament, and I wish you all well in the upcoming election. Thank you.