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