In the upcoming election on June 7, some 56 per cent of the NDP’s candidates will be women, making it the first time in Ontario politics that a major political party has more women running than men.
“We’ve always, as a party, been very committed to making sure that our representatives, our candidates that we put out in a campaign, represent the face of our communities,” NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said at a campaign stop on Mother’s Day.
Of the NDP’s 124 candidates, 69, or 56 per cent, are women, up from 41 per cent in the 2014 election. The Green Party follows close behind with 52 per cent of its candidates being female.
While Wynne’s last cabinet was 56 per cent women, this time around the party’s 123 candidates, currently 55, or 45.5 per cent, are women. The party still has one more candidate to nominate before June 7.
On the PC side, 41 of their candidates are women, or 33 per cent — a huge jump from just 24 female candidates in 2014.
One of the female candidates on the NDP’s roster is Sara Singh, a candidate in Brampton Centre. Singh is a Ph.D. candidate at Ryerson University, holds a Masters in International Development and has been engaged in advocacy work across the community for years.
Horwath not only spoke about her party’s female-dominated slate of candidates, but also shared party policies that could attract female voters, including covering child care costs for low-income families, advocating for equal pay and preserving health care services available to new mothers.