Oh Youre the Political Candidate

[Music]

after i graduated from my bachelor’s

program

in biology it became clear

i was never going to become a doctor

this caused my south asian parents

significant

distress for the next two years

every couple of weeks my dad would shove

newspaper ads

under my bedroom door and they had

the following do your medical degree

in the caribbean do your medical degree

in russia when he gave up on that

the ad started to be do your mba online

today and so on

none of these ads interested me then one

day

he put the following under my door run

for interim toronto city councillor

no experience necessary one year term

and finally this was one of the ads that

i definitely wanted to do

and i got really excited i already had

a lot of student and not-for-profit

leadership experience

and i felt that this was somewhere where

i could really make a difference

and so i tried out for this position it

required

making several different speeches to the

city council chambers

and guess what i came in third

out of 36 candidates i even got a call

from then-mayor david miller

and he encouraged me to run for office

in the future

so i did three more times

but what i slowly discovered was

that there wasn’t that many women

running or even winning

elections since the covet pandemic

women politicians have finally become

more visible

we’ve already heard of jacinda ardern

christian freeland alexandria

ocasio-cortez

and now kamala harris however

in the last 30 years women elected to

parliaments around the world

has only increased by 11

for a global average of 24 percent

at this rate it will take 100 years

for us to achieve equal representation

what about canada well

canada ranks 50th globally when it comes

to the percentage of women in parliament

and of the 50 largest cities that we

have

only four of them have women mares

some of the countries on this list might

surprise you

in terms of representation for example

rwanda after the 1995

genocide and civil war in rwanda women

really had to step up to leadership

now they make 65 of that parliament

and the things that the women have done

there is incredible

they’ve helped increase maternal health

they’ve helped boost women out of

poverty and they’ve ensured that both

boys and girls achieve education at the

same rates

in cuba women now represent 70 percent

of all professional occupations and

more than 80 percent of women continue

to post secondary education

while these numbers seem really

impressive

there are still gaps even in these

countries

women rarely appear in the upper ranks

of office

or in the highest positions such as

heads of departments

or cabinet ministers

so why do we need more women to run for

office

well simply put if there aren’t enough

of us

our decisions um the realities

the needs and concerns that we have as

women

will not be taken into consideration

when policies

are made and guess what according to the

united nations

in order for legislatures to produce

such policies

we need 30 percent of women to be

elected and we’re almost there

women are on the verge of making that

happen

women’s increased political

participation as elected officials

leads to better social economic

and political outcomes for everyone

let me tell you about some of the

amazing things that women politicians

have done

right here in canada in 1921

agnes macphail became the first woman

elected mp federally and

right away she got to fighting for equal

pay legislation

provincially pauline marwa of the

party quebecois championed seven dollar

a day

daycare allowing women to pursue their

own dreams

livelihoods and careers and at the local

level

municipally there are so many things

that are practical things

that women can do my city councillor

kristen wong tam

of toronto recently led the initiative

to ensure that homeless shelters

included free feminine hygiene products

for homeless women and girls in 2005

united nations also released a report

that stated that countries with more

women legislators

are less likely to go to war less likely

to relapse into conflict

and are critical to the peace

and conflict resolution process a

dramatic example of this

is from 2019 when a single active

shooter

massacred 50 muslim mosque-goers in

christchurch new zealand

but within just 72 hours

jacinda ardern’s government swiftly

called to action and they banned

all country-wide assault rifles and

high-capacity magazines

despite all of these incredible things

that women have done

why is there still such a low number of

women in office

well in 2019

a recent canadian federal study cited

that there was

numerous barriers to women running for

office

i’ll talk about just a few of them here

first of all

women face gender stereotypes and

discrimination

when i ran from my first nomination

meeting in 2007

i lost to the other candidate by many

votes

then i ran for my second nomination

meeting i lost to the other candidate

by one single vote sometimes

seeking an internal party nomination can

be

even a bigger battle than running in a

general election

finally it took my third attempt to

secure

a riding however when i came home that

night

the first thing my mom said was great

who’s going to marry you now and

while my mom feels regretful about what

she said that night

it’s true women who run for office

are perceived to be dominating

threatening

and aggressive money too

is a huge factor when i ran my first

campaign

i managed to raise just a little over

five thousand dollars

i got most of that through family and

friends

and this allowed me to have a really

cool mobile office

one where i could store my literature my

signs

and other things i.e it was the trunk of

my parents car

most women experience difficulty in

raising funds for their campaigns

to put this into perspective it takes

around 90

000 to run a winning election campaign

in canada

and women lack those traditional

networks that help

funnel money and donations into their

campaigns

in 2010 rob ford’s mayoral campaign

spent a record 1.7 million dollars

as you can imagine this is definitely a

challenge

another deterrent is harassment

according to amnesty international women

typically receive

three times the online harassment than

men face

this includes extreme threats such as

sexual violence violence against their

families

and even death threats the more women

achieve

in their professional and public lives

the more backlash they receive as well

when i ran federally i can attest to

this

there wasn’t a single day where i did

not experience

some kind of overt sexual harassment

and i felt like there was very little i

could do because

when you run for office as a woman

people expect you to be polite

friendly and agreeable and

the other thing is women also are very

harshly judged

by their appearance their manner of

speaking

and their personal lives do you all

remember

the incredible intention hillary

clinton’s pat suits received

when she ran for president in 2016.

this is just a simple google search

women of color like myself sometimes

we aren’t even considered candidate

material

i was 30 when i ran federally in 2008.

when i canvassed i wore suits i could

barely afford

and i’d go door knocking if i ever took

a white male volunteer with me the

resident of the household

would continuously talk to the volunteer

and eventually they’d look down at the

flyer i handed them

see my face and say so you’re the

candidate

and i would be yeah that’s me that’s me

another challenge that women face is the

confidence gap

they say women tend to undersell their

talents

while men tend to oversell what do a

reality tv star

a drama teacher and a label print maker

have in common

well one is the president of the united

states

the other is the canadian prime minister

and the last is the premier of ontario

i often hear that people aren’t

political

people say i’m not interested in

politics

and i feel like that’s because our

politics

might be a little bit intimidating when

you think of big picture issues

like the environment or the economy

however

how many of you here care about

whether or not your seniors or your

children

have access to the care they need

whether or not an

ambulance makes it on time in the case

of an emergency

whether or not there’s enough sidewalks

and crosswalks in your neighborhood

to keep things safe if you answered yes

to

any of these things you have what it

takes to make it in politics

because it’s this compassion not your

status

that make for a good politician i’ve

told you a little bit about some of the

hurdles

i experienced when running for office

but i’ll tell you

the positive outweighs the negative

substantially

it was a life-changing experience i got

to meet

thousands of people in such a short

period of time

from all walks of life i learned very

quickly

about the real impact that policy makes

on the lives of people and i learned how

limitless you can be

when you’re picking up so many skills on

on the fly when young girls and boys

visited my campaign office and asked me

to help them

in their homework assignments or

interview me it’s a feeling that you’ll

never forget

and i’ve learned that firsthand the

difference that you are making

when you see those kids we need more

women

to let future generations of women know

that they too

can lead because representation

matters seeing yourself represented

helps boost your self-esteem

and confidence we need all sorts of

women to run

women with different abilities women of

color

women from across socioeconomic

backgrounds

women of all ages trans women

all women so how can you make this

happen

what can you do first of all

inspire and nominate an incredible woman

you know

two support women with your time

skills and money volunteer on their

campaigns

and donate three connect

women to opportunity introduce them to

change makers

and power brokers four

vote for the women you believe in

and bonus point run for office yourself

as a woman campaign trainer once said to

me in a workshop

you may not think that you’re smart

enough

that you don’t know all the details the

history

the stats maybe you think you don’t look

the part

or you think you’re just not ready but

guess what

that never stopped a man thank you