While Belgium's election Sunday gave women 10 percent more seats in their parliament, Canada keeps standing still.According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union's table of women in the Parliaments of 181 countries, Canada's 20.6% puts us in 37th spot,
between Nicaragua and Croatia. Sweden is top with 45.3%, and most other European countries were well ahead of us:
http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm
However, with the results of the May 18 election in Belgium just in, Canada is looking worse. Belgium was an exception in Europe. It was only just ahead of us, with 23.3% women in Parliament.
So Belgium took action. Now they have 33.3%. They moved from 25th place to 10th in one election, ranking between Germany and Austria.
The world press has covered the fact that one right-wing party, the Vlaams Blok, gained 3 seats. Perhaps it will mention the fact that women gained 15 seats.
How did Belgium do it? They have proportional representation, with party lists in each of their 11 small provinces. They made a new rule that the top three names on each list must contain at least one woman.
In both linguistic halves of Belgium, they have five parties, although the Greens won only four seats. With 150 members to be elected, their provinces have about 14 seats each. Therefore, each of the four main parties often wins three or four seats from each provincial list, although the number can range from zero to seven. The new rule worked.
Their election law already says that, four years from now, the rule will be equality in the top two names. This will bring Belgium's women even closer to having an equal voice. See:
http://www1.lachambre.be/pri/fiche/pdfE/09_01.pdf
By then, as the rest of the world takes action on equality, will Canada have fallen still further behind?
[ 07 June 2003: Message edited by: Wilfred Day ]
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posted 18 May 2003 05:52 PM
