UN Forum on Minorities and Effective Political Participation Agenda Item V. National Practices and Real Experiences … Presentation by Mary Anne Chambers Ladies and gentlemen. My name is Mary Anne Chambers. I am Jamaican by birth, but have been a Canadian citizen for the past 30 years. I have served as the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities and the Minister of Children and Youth Services, in the Government of Ontario. Ontario is one of Canada’s 13 provinces and territories. Ontario has a population of approximately 13 million people. I would like to speak about “meaningful representation and empowerment” for “effective political participation”. My first 26 years in Canada, were spent in the financial services sector, where I rose from the position of Computer Programmer Analyst to Senior Vice-President of one of Canada’s largest Banks. I was the first and still am the only black woman to have attained that level of seniority in that sector of Canadian business. I had no difficulty securing employment with the Bank upon arriving in Canada, but within a few weeks, a colleague told me that I should 1