Voting for the future
Women go to Ottawa in effort to get more women entering politics
On Wednesday, two Cape Breton women will take their places representing their home ridings in the House of Commons in Ottawa.
No, the present government hasn’t been overthrown but Marissa
O’Neill and Ainslie Pierrynowski will be among the more than 300 young women in Ottawa representing ridings across Canada during International Women’s Week. Each will represent a specific riding and they will be taking part in Equal Voice, a national multipartisan organization dedicated to electing more women to all levels of political office across the country.
O’Neill will represent the riding of Sydney-Victoria while Pierrynowski, a secondyear student at the University of Ottawa, will represent Cape Breton-Canso. O’Neill spoke to the Cape Breton Post over the weekend and said that she is really looking forward to taking part in the program.
“This summer I was very fortunate to work with the amazing not-for-profit association, the Elizabeth Fry Society in Cape Breton,” said O’Neill, who is originally from Sydney and now in her third year of study in finance at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish. “Through my experience there I got to work my clients, victimized and criminalized women, and got to advocate on behalf for them as a court worker. So my experience at that organization really gave me a direct insight to some of the issues that exist in the community. And when I found out about the opportunity to represent Sydney-Victoria through Equal Voice I was instantly on board to share the message of the issues in my community but also to experience this phenomenal opportunity.”
O’Neill and Pierrynowski will leave for Ottawa today. Some of the events taking place include attending policy roundtables and special hearings of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women on Tuesday and professional development and leadership workshops on Thursday, which include sessions on pathways to politics and lessons on running for office.
The highlight of the week will take place on International Women’s Day on Wednesday when each delegate gets to sit in the House of Commons and hear speeches from delegates from across Canada on the issues affecting their communities and gender equality.
“We’re just creating a dialogue and really shedding some light on some of the more important gender-related issues in the country,” said O’Neill.
When asked if she’s considering running for public office someday, she said at age 20, she wants to gain some more life experience first before making any serious decisions.
“Right now I’m still very young,” she said. “I am very heavily interested in how economic policy affects the larger business world so I think policy creation is absolutely something I’m interested in so in that respect, I don’t know directly if it will lead me into politics but it’s something that I like to constantly be aware of and contribute to in any way I can.
“I’m not ruling it out but I don’t know if I am quite ready yet.”
“We’re just creating a dialogue and really shedding some light on some of the more important gender-related issues in the country,” Marissa O’Neill