FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Ontario Election sees increase in women candidates
May 4, 2022, OTTAWA—Today, Equal Voice released its preliminary analysis on the number of women candidates who are running in the Ontario election. While the analysis is incomplete as candidates continue to be nominated, nomination numbers as of yesterday show that the Ontario NDP, Ontario Liberals, and the Green Party of Ontario are currently at or close to gender parity in nominations, and the Ontario PC Party, who have completed their nominations have 26% women candidates.
“It’s encouraging to see that the political parties in Ontario are nominating significant numbers of women candidates in this election cycle, because we know that women and gender diverse candidates are often overlooked in nomination and election cycles at all levels of government,” said Eleanor Fast, executive director of Equal Voice. “After the 2018 election, there were 49 women elected, totalling 39.5% of the seats in the Ontario legislature. While this was the highest number of any provincial legislature in Canada, there is still lots of room to increase female participation in provincial politics, and achieve gender parity in the new legislature.”
Recent survey results commissioned by Equal Voice show that overall, a majority of Canadians say that having more women in politics would have a positive impact on government policy, actions and decisions, and one in five women in Canada would actively consider running for office. With that said, there continues to be barriers to women running, either because of the perceived poor work-life balance, or the fact that the survey showed that men are twice as likely to be asked to run for office than women.
“There’s a real opportunity here for significant change in this Ontario election, and Equal Voice will continue to actively track the number of female and gender diverse candidates in this election, and we look forward to seeing more women MPPs in the Ontario legislature,” added Fast. “There are several high-profile women MPPs, including former Premier Kathleen Wynn and current Minister of Health Christine Elliott that have already indicated they will not be running again, so not only do we need to continue to encourage the next generation of female leaders, but we need to create an environment where women politicians are encouraged to stay in politics.”
Nominations for the Ontario election are still ongoing. Currently, the Progressive Conservatives have nominated 33 women; the NDP have nominated 58 women; the Liberals have nominated 66 women; and the Green Party has nominated 53 women. For more information and regularly updated information, please visit Equal Voice’s Ontario Election tracker here.
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Founded in 2001, Equal Voice is a national, bilingual, multi-partisan, not-for-profit organization dedicated to electing more women to all levels of political office in Canada.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Sophie Normand
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