S-213 (45-1) - An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (demographic information)
Chamber
senate
Stage
2nd Reading
Introduced
May 28, 2025
Progress
This bill requires major political parties to publicly report diversity efforts and the Chief Electoral Officer to collect demographic data on candidates.
Key Changes
- Requires eligible registered parties to publicly post their candidate selection rules, diversity programs, and progress on their websites, updated annually
- Requires parties to publicly state targets for nominating women candidates, or explain why no such targets exist
- Requires parties to post contact information for someone who handles concerns about their diversity obligations
- Directs the Chief Electoral Officer to distribute voluntary self-identification demographic questionnaires to candidates, nomination contestants, and leadership contestants
- Requires the Chief Electoral Officer to publish anonymized demographic reports within 90 days of a general election, and separately for by-elections and leadership contests
- Adds the new diversity-related party obligations to the list of rules whose violation can trigger a deregistration process
Gotchas
- Participation in the demographic questionnaire is entirely voluntary, which may limit the completeness or representativeness of the data collected
- The diversity disclosure requirements only apply to parties above the 2% or 5% vote threshold, meaning smaller parties are exempt
- Parties without diversity policies are not required to create them — they only need to explain why they have not and provide a timeline if applicable, making compliance possible without any substantive action on diversity
- The section creating party diversity obligations (Section 3) does not come into force until two years after royal assent, giving parties time to prepare
- Demographic data collected is confidential and can only be used for the Chief Electoral Officer's reports, limiting other potential uses of the data
- The bill uses the definition of 'designated groups' from the Employment Equity Act, which includes women, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, and members of visible minorities
Who's Affected
- Registered federal political parties that meet the vote threshold (at least 2% nationally or 5% in ridings where they ran candidates)
- Federal election candidates, nomination contestants, and leadership contestants
- The Chief Electoral Officer and Elections Canada
- Voters and the general public, who gain access to more transparency about party diversity practices
Vibes
0 responses
Gotchas
- Participation in the demographic questionnaire is entirely voluntary, which may limit the completeness or representativeness of the data collected
- The diversity disclosure requirements only apply to parties above the 2% or 5% vote threshold, meaning smaller parties are exempt
- Parties without diversity policies are not required to create them — they only need to explain why they have not and provide a timeline if applicable, making compliance possible without any substantive action on diversity
- The section creating party diversity obligations (Section 3) does not come into force until two years after royal assent, giving parties time to prepare
- Demographic data collected is confidential and can only be used for the Chief Electoral Officer's reports, limiting other potential uses of the data
- The bill uses the definition of 'designated groups' from the Employment Equity Act, which includes women, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, and members of visible minorities
Summary
Bill S-213 amends the Canada Elections Act to increase transparency around diversity in Canadian federal politics. It requires registered political parties that received at least 2% of the national vote (or 5% in ridings where they ran candidates) in the last general election to post information on their websites about their diversity policies, candidate selection rules, and progress toward gender and diversity targets. If a party has no such policies, it must explain why and provide a timeline for adopting them. The bill also directs the Chief Electoral Officer (Elections Canada) to send voluntary, self-identification questionnaires to candidates, nomination contestants, and leadership contestants to collect demographic information. This data must be kept confidential, anonymized before publication, and reported publicly within 90 days after a general election. Reports on by-elections and leadership contests are also required. The bill was introduced in the Senate by Senator Dasko and appears aimed at making the diversity of political candidates more visible and encouraging parties to actively work toward more representative candidate pools.
Automatically generated from bill text using Claude
Vibes
0 responses