Ontario Liberals meet commitment

    TORONTO, Sept. 5 /CNW/ - With nominations closed, Ontario Liberals are
pleased to announce that they have met their commitment with regards to female
candidates.
    "I am delighted that we have not only met the commitment that Premier
McGuinty made, we have exceeded it," said Ontario Liberal Candidate Search
Chair Deb Matthews.
    The original commitment made by Premier McGuinty was to run female
candidates in half of the 45 ridings currently not held by the Ontario Liberal
Party. In fact, 25 of those ridings will have a woman representing the Ontario
Liberal Party, and more than one-third of the total number of candidates
running as Liberals will be women.
    "We were able to meet and exceed our pledge because of Premier McGuinty's
leadership and genuine commitment to this issue," said Matthews. "He led the
way, setting our target without hesitation and making sure we met it."
    "But we're not stopping here because we know there's more work to do,"
continued Matthews. "We will continue to support female candidates through the
Margaret Campbell Fund, and we continue to strive to increase female
representation in our party."


    Rosemary Speirs
    National Chair, Equal Voice
    1815 Altona Road
    Pickering, Ontario  L1V 1M6

    Dear Ms. Speirs,

    On behalf of Dalton McGuinty and the Ontario Liberals, we want to thank
you and Equal Voice for the work you do. Your efforts to bring attention to
the shortage of women in Ontario politics, and your work to get more women to
run for political office is invaluable.
    Electing more women is a personal priority of our leader, Dalton
McGuinty's, and in May 2006, he set a goal to run women in half of our open
seats in the 2007 campaign.
    As our nominations close for the 2007 provincial campaign, Ontario
Liberals are pleased to advise that not only have we met our Premier's target,
we have exceeded it.
    Of 45 open ridings, there are 25 women running as Ontario Liberals and in
our overall candidate team over one-third is female.
    We were able to meet and exceed our pledge because of our Premier's
leadership and genuine commitment to this issue. He led the way, setting our
target without hesitation and making sure we met it.
    We are delighted that just over one-third of our team of candidates are
women and we know that there is more work to do. We will continue to support
our female candidates through the Ontario Liberal Margaret Campbell Fund,
ensuring they have the financial resources to succeed and we will continue to
work hard for fair representation for women.
    On behalf of Dalton McGuinty and the Ontario Liberals, thank you for the
work you do.
    We look forward to working with Equal Voice in continuing to promote the
election of women.

    
    Yours truly,

    "signed"                                "signed"
    Deb Matthews, MPP                       Kim Donaldson
    Chair, Candidate Search                 Nominations Commissioner
    Ontario Liberal Party                   Ontario Liberal Party
    

For further information:

For further information: Deb Matthews, (519) 670-2759