I had the honour of being invited to Women’s Leadership Luncheon featuring Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario on September 26, 2011 at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto.

Catalyst Canada and Deborah Gillis, Senior Vice President, Membership & Global Operations, hosted the luncheon featuring a discussion on women’s leadership and advancement in Canada.

Gillis gave her wonderful opening remarks and then introduced The Premier, calling him the champion for women.

Under McGuinty’s leadership, 30% of cabinet is women and they handle 80% of the provincial budget.

“We have a record 42 women candidates out of 107. We have never been closer, he said.  “We are stronger because we have more women at the table.”

McGuinty spoke about his own family, sharing the story about his own grandmother who ended up being a single mom.

As for his own mom, he had nothing but praise to give.  “My mom is my hero.  She raised 10 kids, two dogs…she’s a retired nurse.”

McGuinty’s humour wasn’t left at the door.

“Growing up with 12 kids, I never slept alone until I was married,” he said.

Women are the heart of strong families so the Liberal’s focus is on health care and education.  Some of the points McGuinty made during his talk:

Education:

Ontario has one of best supporting school systems.  Full-day kindergarten will be available in all schools by 2014.   After school programs for children aged 6-12 would be implemented. Other programs including childhood obesity and healthy snacks would be introduced.  For low to middle income families, university tuition costs would be reduced by 30 per cent.

Healthcare:

Ontario now has the shortest surgical wait times in Canada.  With our aging population, the Liberals want reintroduce house calls, healthy house renovation credits and allow family care leave up to eight weeks.

It was a fabulous speech and being in a room with 500 amazing women was such an honour.

Full disclosure: I am not endorsing any political party but I wanted to write about about the luncheon.