Women's Equality & the Federal Election: Why Your Vote Counts

Women fought hard and even died to gain the right to vote alongside men. It can be challenging to sift through the information from all the political parties during an election. How important is voting anyways? What impact does it have? Women’s Equality & the Federal Election: Why Your Vote Counts was a non-partisan public education event promoting voting among women and awareness of issues impacting women in the federal election. This event brought together leading women’s right experts, economists, community leaders, and candidates from all federal political parties for an informative dialogue on issues impacting women in Canada.Topics for discussion included childcare, wage equity, economic inequality, housing, discrimination, the importance of voting among women, and women’s political leadership and representation in Canada’s federal government. A woman candidate from the Liberal, NDP and Green parties explained their party election platforms on key issues impacting women and discuss how their party will address gender inequality. Panel discussion with Shelagh Day, Iglika Ivanova and Cherry Smiley, plus information from Grace Lore, Equal Voice, on women in politics, was moderated by Erica Johnson. The federal party representatives included Constance Barnes, Lisa Barrett and Dr. Hedy Fry.