By: Batoul Hreiche
Her activism with the Liberal party and her goal to get women into Canadian politics have led Maddy Porter to establish a name for herself both on campus and the local political scene.
Porter, 20, is in her third year at Carleton University. The brown-eyed and blond-haired Criminology major grew up with her two younger siblings in the small community of Port Stanley, Ont. near London and moved to Ottawa three years ago. One of the reasons she chose to move to the country’s capital was to be a part of its politics and multicultural society.
“Sometimes I take the bus one step further just to see Parliament Hill. You can definitely call me a political nerd,” joked Porter.
She is actively enrolled as co-president of Carleton’s Equal Voice Chapter and is the Ottawa regional representative for Beyond the Numbers. The former is a non-partisan organization aiming to involve women of all parties in the political process and the latter is a group of Liberals also devoted to engaging women in politics.
Porter has been involved at Carleton since her first year when she ran for a seat on the Rideau River Residence Association. Today, she’s also vice president organization for the Ottawa Centre Young Liberals and vice president provincial for Carleton’s Young Liberals. Furthermore, Porter is actively enrolled as the criminology student representative for the Carleton Academic Student Government, whose mission is to allow students to exert change on the management of the University.
“Honestly, if I wasn’t a part of all these organizations, I would have a mental breakdown because I’m one of those people that needs to be super busy and engaged all the time,” said Porter. “You can say that I stay up very late!”
Porter has a part-time job at Metro, has worked at Bob Rae’s office since September of this year and has previously worked for Carleton graduate Yasir Naqvi’s provincial campaign.
“He’s (Naqvi) amazing and he has so much energy. His positive attitude was the reason I got involved in politics,” she said.
Porter is currently enrolled in a practicum for the Crown Attorney to gain a course credit. She is the assistant to the Crown Attorney in the Mental Health Court in Ottawa.
“I assist the Crown in his day-to-day trial proceedings two days out of the week. It is a fantastic opportunity in which I am gaining real world experience in an area of the law I am passionate about,” said Porter.
She dedicates a couple of hours each day to try to manage and prepare events for all of the organizations she’s involved with. She also verifies that all members are updated and informed and she usually attends one to three meetings a week. Porter organizes about five events a month but says the amount of time she dedicates is incorporated into every hour in her day because she is always advocating getting equal representation of women in politics.
“I’m so passionate about getting women equally represented in the House. Everyone thinks that the barriers have been broken down but there are some that haven’t yet,” she added.
Since the time women won the right to vote, there has been a slow change with their attendance in political life. Today, they are underrepresented in Parliament and the provincial legislatures. Women make up 52% of the Canadian population but only represent 25% in the House of Commons.
Beyond the Numbers creates initiatives aimed at raising awareness and one of their previous ones was for “International Day of the Girl.” The young activists took photos of why women belong in the House and Porter’s photo read: “I belong in the House because my potential should not be determined by my gender.”
Kirsty Duncan, the MP for the Liberal party in Etobicoke North, is Porter’s favourite politician. She was appointed in 2008 and has contributed a lot of her past and current work on the environment.
“She breaks down politics to a level that other politicians don’t. She focuses on the community and she’s so passionate about issues that some politicians don’t pay much attention to, like MS,” she said.
Porter dreams of proceeding to law school after graduating and perhaps becoming a lawyer or working in some aspect of the criminal justice system, or in politics. For now, she’s proud of how established she is at such a young age and hopes to continue on with her journey of bringing more women into politics.