By Pepper Parr
September 5, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
She has been around politics most of her life.
She loves the process and believes fervently that the democratic process and the parliamentary tradition are what bring prosperity and opportunity to the individual. Elected to the House of Commons in 1993 Paddy Torsney is now the Permanent Observer at the United Nations for the International Parliamentary Union.
The organization is based in Geneva but Torsney runs their show at the United Nations and now lives in New York where she is – “adjusting”.
“I can walk to work which is nice. But New York is different.”
Paddy Torsney has been on the front line of every progressive issue involving people and their rights.
Her job is one of persuasion. Working to get changes made within parliamentary democracies.
“We hold hearings and invite people to attend. Our objectives are to bring about changes in those countries that have policies and practices that are not in keeping with human rights taken for granted in the Western world. Frequently” said Torsney “a country will take a position on an issue but they fail to follow up with legislative changes and they don’t make provision for the changes in their budgets.” Talk, as Torsney knows all too well is cheap
The Ninth Meeting of Women Speakers of Parliament, organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, takes place this weekend in Geneva.
The Meeting will be held under the overall theme of the “Economic empowerment of women” and will examine how women Speakers should take the lead in working towards that goal. Important questions will be explored such as: how to build a social, cultural and legal environment that is conducive to the economic empowerment of women? Among the leading questions to be discussed are: How to ensure that national budgets and policies take into account women’s needs? How to facilitate women taking a leading role on this?
The meetings of women Speakers of Parliament aim at providing women in the highest decision making positions of parliament a regular forum and opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences on gender issues which are of interest to their national and international agendas.
Paddy Torsney is right in there using her skills and her experience to lead, advise and support the people on the front lines of social change. Her appointment is for two years and that has in the past been extended. Torsney’s predecessor held the job for seven years.
Torsney served as the Burlington chair of the United Way drive in 2012/13. Here she meets with Brian Ferguson, who went on to serve as the UW chair for Burlington the following year.
Paddy returns to Burlington frequently. She decided to maintain her home here; life in New York keeps her busy as well. “I bought a series of concert tickets and you would be surprised at the number of people who drift through New York and give me a call.
The IPU has four Standing Committees; Peace and International Security, Sustainable Development; Finance and Trade; Democracy and Human Rights and United Nations Affairs.
Torsney works at the United Nations with a staff of six most of her time with four or five trips to Geneva where the 50 IPU are headquartered.
One of the issues the IPU is working on is girls that are put into child marriages. “These things happen in many countries in large measure because the laws in those countries permit this to happen. The IPU works at getting discussion going with these countries and working to bring about a change in their laws.” It is a long slow process most of the time but the IPU, which has been around for a long time, understands this process all too well. Formed on June 30th, 1889 by a group of parliamentarians meeting in Paris, they created what is now known as the Inter Parliamentary Union. There are now 47,000 parliamentarians attached to the IPU. At one point Paddy Torsney was the Canadian representative on the IPU.
“We work closely with a lot of the Non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) who are on the ground in a way we can’t be” said Torsney
As for Paddy and New York – “well the rents are high and there is so much to choose from in this city. Torsney has had to re-orient herself and get used to the way the United Nations works – which is a lot different that the House of Commons in Ottawa where she served for seven years as an elected representative.
She was born Patricia Ann Torsney, in Burlington, Ontario and grew up to become a politician.
Torsney was educated at McGill University, a Bachelor of Commerce degree in 1985. From 1985 to 1989, she worked as a special assistant to the office of David Peterson, the Liberal Premier of Ontario. Torsney then worked as a Senior Consultant to the firm of Hill and Knowlton from 1989 to 1993.
Torsney was first elected to parliament in the election of 1993, defeating her closest opponent, Progressive Conservative Mike Kuegle, by almost 10,000 votes. The Progressive Conservatives had previously held the riding since 1972.
Torsney is one of the more fashionably dressed woman in Burlington – the opportunities to shop in New York will be absolutely delicious for her.
The PCs under Jean Charest targeted Burlington in the 1997 election, but Torsney again defeated Kuegle by just over 3,500 votes. She won an easier victory in the 2000 election, against a more divided opposition.
The newly formed Conservative Party of Canada made a strong bid for the riding in the 2004 election, running local Councillor Mike Wallace against Torsney. Most observers believed that Torsney would lose. However, a last-minute resurgence in Liberal support resulted in a 4,000-vote victory. In the 2006 election, she again faced off against Wallace, losing to him by 2,570 votes. In the 2008 election Torsney lost to Wallace by 9,027 votes.
Torsney was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment from 1998 to 2000. On July 20, 2004, she was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Cooperation.
In 2002, Torsney chaired a committee which recommended several changes to Canada’s drug laws, including the decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana.
Torsney was the President of Canadian group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and has worked for the worldwide abolition of land mines. She is also a former board member of UNICEF Canada.
In 2007, Liberal Party of Canada Leader, Stéphane Dion, appointed Torsney as Deputy Principal Secretary in the Office of the Leader of the Opposition. She resigned from the position in April 2008.
Is political life over for Torsney – the job she has now means no political involvement – but it doesn’t stop her from holding the annual breakfast she has held for 20 years – a time when she invites young women from Burlington schools to a breakfast where a speaker talks about the role women have played and can continue to play in public life.
This year one can expect Karina Gould to be on hand for that breakfast – she attended one of those breakfasts when she was 15 years old – today she is the federal Liberal candidate for Burlington.
Why are we still in this collection of tyrants and dictators? While at one time it was a noble organization, it has now fallen into disrepute. The UN is basically controlled by the OIC a cabal of Islamic countries who refused to sign into the Declaration of Human Rights accord and created their own called the, Cairo Declaration of Human Rights, which gives Sharia Law the last word, meaning human rights, like equality for all under the law, is replaced with Qur’anic religious law. Time to start another organization where all participants are practicing members of the Human Rights Declaration Accord.