Canada Elections Act

Honourable senators, this item is adjourned in the name of Senator Martin, and I ask for leave of the Senate that, following my intervention, the balance of her time to speak to this item be reserved.

Honourable senators, I rise today to speak in support of Bill S-213, which proposes essential, evidence-based amendments to the Canada Elections Act.

I want to begin with two numbers.

The first number is 30%.

That is the proportion of seats held by women in the House of Commons today after the most recent federal election and after decades of stated commitment to the goal of a parliament that reflects the country it represents. It is statistically indistinguishable from the election before it and the one before that. We have, in effect, flatlined.

The second number is 55%.

That is the share of seats held by women in this chamber, which currently comprises 95 members. I ask colleagues to sit with that contrast for just a moment. The appointed house has crossed the threshold of majority-female representation. The elected house has not moved meaningfully in years.

We are not talking about a gap that is closing. We are talking about a gap that has flatlined, and in some respects, a gap that is widening.

What does this mean internationally?

Canada ranks seventy-first in the world for women’s representation in national legislatures, behind Mali, Senegal and Tanzania — countries to which Canada provides development funding for gender equality programs. Our democratic peers — France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Australia and New Zealand — all rank in the top 50. Mexico, which shares a gender equality action plan with Canada, ranks fourth in the world, with women holding more than half of the seats in its lower house.

We are funding the goal abroad while failing to meet it at home.

According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, or IPU, women hold 27.5% of parliamentary seats worldwide — a figure that has grown by just 0.3% for two consecutive years, the slowest rate of progress since 2017.

In executive positions, representation has actually declined. Fewer than one in four cabinet ministers globally is a woman. The proportion of women serving as speakers of parliament dropped last year from 23.7% to 19.9%. After three decades of forward movement, the needle has stalled, and in some places, it is moving in reverse.

The causes of this are not mysterious.

The IPU’s own research points to a troubling rise in gender-based political violence. In its most recent survey, 76% of women parliamentarians reported experiencing psychological violence in the course of their work.

For the first time in a Canadian federal election, the federal government was compelled to offer private security services to protect candidates facing abuse, threats of harm and intimidation. Twenty-two candidates required this protection, and I note that this is entirely separate from the standard police protection provided to party leaders, cabinet ministers and designated parliamentarians. Think about that: 22 candidates.

Harassment, intimidation and the accumulated weight of structural disadvantage are not neutral forces. They shape who runs, who is nominated and, therefore, who wins.

That last point brings me directly to this bill and to the data that, in my view, every senator in this chamber would benefit from knowing. In the 2025 federal election, the NDP nominated women as more than half of its candidates, at 51.5%; the Liberals nominated women for 35.7% of their candidacies; the Conservatives nominated women for 22.8% of theirs. These are not private figures; they are public facts. They tell us something that voluntary good intentions have consistently failed to tell us: Without transparency or any mechanism that asks parties to account for whom they put forward and why, the numbers will not move on their own.

They have not moved. They will not move.

Bill S-213 does not tell parties what to do. It does not impose quotas or mandate outcomes. What it does is far more modest and considerably harder to argue against. It asks parties to be transparent, to publish their plans for improving diversity in candidate selection and to publicly explain why they have none.

It also empowers the Chief Electoral Officer to collect and publish anonymized demographic data on electoral participation.

These are not radical suggestions; they are the direct recommendations of the Chief Electoral Officer and the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women. Report or explain. Let Canadians see what is happening, and they will decide how to hold parties to account.

I am mindful that colleagues will arrive at this bill carrying questions about the Senate’s appropriate role in matters that touch the Canada Elections Act, and I want to address those questions directly and briefly.

Bill S-213 does not alter who may vote. It does not touch the franchise. It does not touch on data privacy. It does not mandate parties to make, amend or repeal any internal policies. However, it does ask parties that already report publicly on their finances, donations and electoral expenses to be similarly transparent about how they select the people Canadians will be asked to vote for.

That is a question squarely within this chamber’s proper scope, and it is, if anything, a question this chamber is uniquely suited to consider, precisely because we are not ourselves subject to the electoral pressures that make it so difficult for the other place to look at itself objectively.

By initiating this discussion here, we are not dictating policy; we are performing the exact function this chamber was designed for: elevating the quality of our national discourse.

Colleagues will have noticed that this chamber has recently debated a number of bills dealing with political parties, electoral reform and the Canada Elections Act. At times, those debates may seem to pull in different directions. My approach has been simple: to look at each bill in terms of what it actually does and judge it on that basis, rather than through the political debate surrounding it. Some legislation is designed to create a minimum standard, putting protections in place where none existed before. Bill S-213 asks a different question. It is not about establishing a floor; it is about raising the bar. Those are different objectives, and each deserves to be considered on its own merits.

On the question of what we are aiming for — increasing the number of female parliamentarians — let’s look at why this is important through a research lens. Research on legislative effectiveness involving the tracking of nearly 140,000 bills introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives over three decades found that women, on average, are more effective legislators than their male counterparts. I know this is very controversial at this time of night, but they are more likely to introduce more bills, build broader coalitions across party lines and see their legislation enacted, particularly when serving in the minority.

The study’s authors attribute this not to ideology but to approach; women in legislatures tend toward collaboration, where men, in the same circumstances, tend toward obstruction. I’m not saying that about the men in this chamber, for sure.

A separate audit study of over 6,000 state legislators found that women respond to constituent requests at higher rates than men, across districts, ideologies and party lines. The evidence tells us they make institutions work better for everyone. If we are serious about building a more effective parliament, we must be equally serious about the mechanics of the legislation that will help us get there.

There are details in this proposal that warrant careful examination. For example, we should scrutinize the definition of “electorally significant parties.” We should examine the balance between public accountability and party autonomy, and how we ensure data quality in a voluntary system.

Beyond these structural considerations, and at the risk of exceeding the scope of the bill, I urge honourable senators to consider a vital related question: When parties report on their diversity policies, what constitutes a comprehensive approach? Given the disproportionate online abuse many female candidates face, we may wish to weigh in on whether a policy on representation should, by its nature, include measures to support and protect those candidates as well.

These questions are not reasons to walk away from the bill. Rather, they are the catalysts to move it forward. I am convinced that the principles are sound, and its objective, which is a more inclusive and truly representative parliament, is one that we must champion.

Colleagues, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the leadership of the sponsor of this bill, Senator Donna Dasko. Long before she arrived in this chamber, Senator Dasko was a titan in the private sector, recognized as one of Canada’s most respected pollsters and a master at interpreting the pulse of the Canadian public. Her career is a testament to the power of evidence and research to inform public policy.

Since her appointment to the Senate in 2018, she has brought that same rigour, coupled with a lifelong, unwavering commitment to the promotion of women in politics. As a co‑founder of Equal Voice and a driving force behind the Campaign for an Equal Senate for Canada, she has spent decades advocating for the very inclusivity that this bill now seeks to formalize.

Her presence in this chamber has been a gift to our deliberative process, and while we will miss her expertise as she prepares for her upcoming retirement, her legacy will undoubtedly endure through the foundations she has laid for a more representative and equitable democracy.

She has spent decades measuring the gap between where we are and where we should be, and then refusing to accept it. Senator Dasko is preparing to leave this chamber. This bill does not have to leave with her.

The bottom line is that 30% is not good enough. We have known it for years. The question before us is this: What are we prepared to do about it? Will we be content to, once again, note the problem and move on, or will we move this forward?

I encourage this chamber to send Bill S-213 to committee and to do so without delay.

Thank you.