Women's panel 2007 AGM

Panelists for the Women's Panel for the 2007 AGM were:

Karen Bird, Professor at MacMaster Univerisity whose primary study interests are women and minorities.

Linda Silver Dranoff, a noted lawyer and feminist 

Bryan Byong-Kuon Kim, a citizen's Assembly member and a strong voice for better representation under the new model.

All of these panelists strongly support the referendum for MMP since they believe that women will be better represented under the new system.

However, they regard this as a start since the increases for women will not achieve parity. There are no built in mechanisms to promote women as there are in many PR countries.

The advantage the new system will provide will be that of transparency in the nomination process for the at-large candidates and in doing so it is hoped that greater rigour for the list nominations will contrast with the often irregular and non transparent processes that occur with our present nomination system in the ridings.

It is the current quixotic practices in the ridings that depresses the number of women as it does in all major single member plurality (SMP) countries. Because of this system, we rank 48th in the world, trailing countries such as Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Changing the system will better enable the legislature to reflect the diversity that Ontarians and Canadians see everyday in their normal lives. 

 
The presentations are listed as delivered at the AGM:

Bryan Byong-Kuon Kim PDF 22K

Linda Silver Dranoff PDF 23K

Karen Bird PDF 83K