On Thursday, July 17th, approximately 100 Liberals from all over came out to the National Women’s Liberal Commission (NWLC) event “Make Your Mark” in Toronto to celebrate our federal candidates, engage young women, and discuss how we can all work hard to make sure that women have an equal voice in politics. It was a great night of fun as well as serious discussion. I wasn’t the only blogger there either, as Jason Cherniak and Will Norman (Liberal Bag) came to show their support as well (see photos below).
Importantly, many federal Liberal candidates were also in attendance, including the guest speaker, Critic for Status of Women, Maria Minna. She reminded us of the absolute necessity of throwing out Stephen Harper who’s taken us back decades on women’s issues. Canada lags far behind the rest of the Western world in terms of female representation in federal politics and that it’s well past time for women to have equal representation in the House of Commons so that their voices can be heard loud and clear. Thankfully, Stephane Dion and the Liberals firmly committed to bringing gender equality to the House of Commons and so far is more than exceeding his commitment to run at least one-third female candidates in the next election.
The NWLC also raised money through this event to go to their organization and they showcased their awesome new merchandise and their campaigns designed to encourage more women to run for office. The NWLC remains absolutely crucial to ensuring that women make their mark in the party and in the House of Commons. The fact that the Conservatives don’t have such a commission (not to mention not having a youth commission either) just shows how little they care about gender equality.
The night’s events also saw the promotion of the OWLC Liberal female youth mentorship program that I’ve spent a lot of time organizing as OWLC VP Young Women (if you wonder why blogging has been slow of late that is at least part of the reason – hopefully I’ll have more blogging time this week). The mentorship program pairs up established female Liberals (e.g., MPs, Senators, Liberal women’s club Presidents, and senior young Liberals) with younger women between the age of 14 to 30. The program has been met with great success thus far and I hope this is one way we are building the next generation of strong women in the party.
It’s only a matter of time before Liberals together are going to break the glass ceiling and shatter it into a million pieces so that it can never be built up again.
Pictures from the Night's Events....
OYL Communications Director Zac Spicer and LPC(O) Central Region President Jason Cherniak - Facebook bff's!
NWLC Commissions Assistant Monika Drobnicki (the night's MC and the event's organizer)
Unknown Liberal and OYL Eastern region coordinator Krista Balsom who drove 5 hours to model the new t-shirts
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2 comments:
"We need more women in Parliament"
Who said it? Stephane Dion.
Interestingly enough, in the two ridings where the Liberals are likely to win in the upcoming by-elections, the Liberals are running men... while the other parties, the NDP in Westmount and the Tories in Guelph, are running stong and capable women.
The only riding where the Liberals are running a woman is St. Lambert... where the Liberals don't have a hope of winning.
So much for Dion's efforts to increase the number of women in this Parliament... when he had the opportunity to do so, he took a pass. Hypocrite.
(of course, I'm betting this comment never sees the light of day...)
Sorry Paul been away from the blogging, haven't been able to approve the comment till now...
What matters to me is the overall picture and the Liberals have nominated close to 40% female candidates across the country - they are certainly FAR ahead of the Conservatives on that count.
And you are very wrong to count out Roxanne in St. Lambert, she's working extremely hard and I think she is likely to surprise a lot of people on election night.
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