Speech by Senator Woo welcoming Senator Dasko to Senate by ISGGSIsen published on 2018-06-12T16:41:48Z Honourable colleagues, it is my pleasure, on behalf of the Independent Senators Group, to extend a warm welcome to the Honourable Donna Dasko, senator for the province of Ontario. My colleague Senator Saint-Germain will offer congratulations in a statement to follow for the Honourable Pierre Dalphond. If Donna Dasko’s name sounds familiar to you, it could be that she was mentioned only a number of weeks ago in a speech by Senator Omidvar, who told us about how she got started in Canada as a new immigrant with the help of none other than Senator Dasko. You may also recognize her name from the many references in the media to her former role as Senior Vice-President of the Environics Research Group. As one of the country’s leading pollsters, she has helped Canadians gain insight on many issues of public interest, including budget priorities, national unity and health promotion. She is also a TV and radio personality, having appeared many times on CBC and other networks to offer her expert analysis on policy and political issues of the day. Therefore, it is no wonder that Senator Dasko is currently a lecturer and senior fellow in the School of Public Policy & Governance at the University of Toronto, where she teaches a course in public opinion and policy-making. We are very fortunate to have someone with such unique skills in public policy to be part of our ranks. Senator Dasko is also renowned for her advocacy of women’s participation in politics. She is the co-founder of Equal Voice, a national non-partisan organization with a mission of having more women represented at all levels of government in Canada. It is fitting that on the day of her swearing in we are witnessing an election in her very province of Ontario where there is a substantial number of women candidates running for office; to be precise, 56 per cent of NDP candidates, 52 per cent for the Greens, 45 per cent for the Liberals and 32 per cent for the PCs. In the words of Senator Dasko, “[W]omen are half the population and we should be there [in the federal and provincial legislatures] in numbers that are equal to men.” These are not idle words. By applying to be an independent senator, she took a concrete step to increase women’s participation in political life. With her appointment today to the upper house, she has raised the share of women in our chamber to a record high of 45 per cent. Colleagues, there are not many senators who set records on their first day of work, but she is one of them. May there be many more memorable moments to come. Senator Dasko, we welcome you as our colleague and look forward to working with you. Genre News & Politics