Tag: Ottawa

A House of Commons committee is making a cross-party call for the federal government to offer financial incentives to political parties that nominate more women candidates to run for election. "Despite their growing political participation, women represent just 35 per cent of all legislators in Canada and remain under-represented at all levels of government," the report said. "Increasing women's participation in electoral politics is essential for achieving greater gender equality. Having more women in elected office is about more than achieving equality in a traditionally male-dominated field — it could also have significant effects on public policy." One potential fix, the committee says, would be to offer cash incentives, such as subsidies, to encourage parties to help more women get nominated and then elected. The federal per-vote subsidy was eliminated in 2015. But the rules and processes associated with nomination and election campaigns can be complicated, and decision-making within parties was described by some as "opaque." The committee said Ottawa should also consider encouraging parties to set voluntary quotas for how many female candidates they plan to field and publicly report on efforts to recruit female candidates after every general election. Other recommendations include a call for publicly funded education campaigns and training to counter the negative effects of gender-based harassment of female politicians, both in traditional and social media. The MPs who worked on the report plan to ask to another Commons committee, which studies electoral issues, to consider looking into ways to eliminate gender bias in the design of voting ballots.

The Peace tower is reflected in a window in Ottawa, Tuesday March 26, 2019. A House of Commons committee says government should offer financial incentives to political parties that nominate more women candidates to run for election. This is one of 14 recommendations of the status of women committee, which studied the ongoing under-representation of women in politics. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld OTTAWA — A House of Commons committee says the government should offer financial incentives to political parties to nominate more women candidates to run for election. This is one of 14 recommendations of the status of women committee, which studied the ongoing under-representation of women in politics. Despite being active in their communities, women represent just 35 per cent of all legislators in Canada, according to Statistics Canada. The committee suggests political parties should be working harder to get more women to run by eliminating sexism and biases that might be built into their recruitment efforts. One potential fix would be to offer cash incentives, such as subsidies or weighted formulas for public financing to encourage parties to help more women to get nominated and then elected. The committee also says government should consider requiring political parties to publicly report on their efforts to recruit female candidates after every general election and should also encourage them to set voluntary quotas for how many female candidates they plan to field.

Canada’s ambassador to China sought to retract comments suggesting politics would play a role in the potential extradition to the U.S. of a Huawei Technologies Co. executive, adding another setback to weeks of tension between the two countries. John McCallum said in a statement Thursday that he “misspoke” earlier this week when he discussed the case of Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou. Those comments contradicted weeks of assurances from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the process was in the hands of Canada’s court system. “As the government has consistently made clear, there has been no political involvement in this process.” Trudeau earlier Thursday brushed off calls from Canada’s main opposition party leader for McCallum’s removal, saying that such a step would do nothing to secure the release of two Canadians who were detained in China following the Huawei arrest. Canada is also seeking clemency for a third citizen who was sentenced to death, with China rejecting international pressure to intervene while suggesting Canadian politicians also have the power to free Meng because she’s committed no crime in Canada. McCallum’s statement Thursday returned to the message that “Canada is conducting a fair, unbiased, and transparent legal proceeding with respect to Meng Wanzhou,” and that “Canada respects its international legal commitments, including by honoring its extradition treaty with the United States.” The U.S. has until Jan. 30 to present a formal request for extradition. Meng has been released on bail and is living in a Vancouver home. At that lengthy meeting with reporters he also said Meng could defend herself because of the “extraterritorial aspect to her case” and because Canada didn’t “sign on” to U.S. sanctions against Iran she may have violated. Canada is reviewing whether to ban Huawei from its next-generation 5G wireless network, a move already taken or under consideration by some allies. “It’s not so much that Huawei poses a risk, it’s that China poses a risk in terms of its worldwide intelligence collection,” Elcock said in a BNN Bloomberg television interview.

With official Ottawa winding down for the holidays, we thought we’d take this week to reflect back on the stories that shaped the year in politics. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s road to a national carbon tax developed more potholes in 2018 than an Ottawa street after a long winter of frequent freeze and thaw. The plan – dubbed a “backstop” by Ottawa – imposes the tax in any province that does not have its own carbon levy – either through a direct tax or cap-and-trade system. Conservative premiers in Manitoba and New Brunswick also backed off plans to adopt a carbon tax, forcing Ottawa to extend its backstop to those provinces along with Saskatchewan and Ontario. If you’re reading this on the web, subscribers can sign up for the Politics newsletter and more than 20 others on our newsletter signup page. We’ll be back in your inboxes in a week. Michael Kovrig was detained last week in an apparent retaliation for Canada’s arrest of an executive at the Chinese telecom giant Huawei. One-in-five Canadians has no opinion of him one way of the other. The Conservatives, on the other hand, are only five points behind the Liberals in the national vote numbers, but are over-performing in regions where there aren’t enough seats available to impact the election outcome.” Margaret Wente (The Globe and Mail) on the holidays: “Why, after 40 years of feminism, has so little changed? It’s spread by women’s publications and by Pinterest, which bedazzle you with images of Stepford wives dressed in hand-knit reindeer sweaters decorating cunning little Christmas cookies.” Got a news tip that you’d like us to look into?