Ryerson Women in the House
Women are chronically underrepresented in Canadian politics. Even though one in two people living in Canada are women, less than one third occupy seats in the House of Commons. In addition, Canada is ranked 60th in the world for its percentage of women elected to federal office.
To help reverse this trend, Dr. Tracey Raney (opens in new window) and Peggy Nash (opens in new window) , a veteran politician and distinguished visiting professor at the Faculties of Arts and Community Services, launched a pilot program earlier this fall to encourage women to consider entering politics.
The program, Ryerson Women in the House (opens in new window) , was created to give Faculty of Arts upper-year undergraduate and graduate students a unique opportunity to spend two days in Ottawa in early November.
Twelve (12) female students – cutting a wide swath of disciplines from psychology and politics to environment and urban sustainability – spent two days (November 5 thru 7) in Ottawa. Their busy schedule included shadowing MPs to get a glimpse of their work life, taking in Question Period, observing media scrums with politicians, and networking with MPs over lunch.
View the full story, including student perspectives on the project.