March 5, 2010 - No. 48

International Women's Day 2010

All Out to Celebrate International Women's Day by Reaffirming Our Fight for the Rights of All!

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

• What It Means to Be "Strong" - Dagmar Sullivan
• Urgent Need to Strengthen Public Enterprise to Protect Women Who Are Victims of Violence - Peggy Morton
• Harper Government's Arrogant Denial of Responsibility for the Problem of Women's Impoverishment - Elaine Couto

Fourth Anniversary of Harper Government's "Universal" Child Care Benefit
• Workers Need a National Child Care Program! - Christine Nugent

Haiti
• Women Honour Leaders Who Died in the Earthquake

SUPPLEMENT
• Centenary of 1910 Resolution to Establish International Women's Day: History of International Women's Day - Janice Murray
• Canada Ranks 47th: Women's Participation in Electoral Politics - Nicole LeBlanc

What It Means to Be "Strong"

- Dagmar Sullivan -

The 2010 theme of the Status of Women is "Strong Women, Strong Canada, Strong World." The theme for 2009 was "Strong Leadership, Strong Women, Strong World: Equality" and in 2008 it was "Strong Women, Strong World." Helena Guergis, Minister of State (Status of Women) has recently gone across Canada presenting the theme: "Strong Women Mean a Strong Canada."

What is this government's problem? What does it mean by strong? Does it think that if it relegates enough women to stay at home and home school their children but promotes the "best and the brightest" to be No. 1 "on the market place," Canadian women will forget all about their rights and become desperate chauvinists and warmongers and call themselves "strong"? "Strong" about what? Today's "strong" Canada is the one which hands the wealth produced by the workers over to foreign and domestic monopolies, slashes and privatizes public services, sells off the nation's assets, and attacks the wages, working conditions and pensions of the pubic sector and private sector workers. It is a Canada of aggression and occupation, a Canada in which "Might Makes Right." This so-called strong Canada has failed to stop the take over of our manufacturing and resource sectors by foreign monopolies. It has no strength to resist the U.S. demands to embroil Canada in its acts of aggression and empire building. It is a Canada which has not had the strength to uphold international laws on torture and the UN Charter on the non-use of force to settle differences between nations but has the strength to persecute those who oppose the war. A Canada which does not have the strength to protect workers from plant closures, wage cuts and concessions but which has the strength to arrest striking workers and legislate them back to work -- this Canada is strong for whom? A Canada which does not have the strength to protect the over 500 mainly Aboriginal disappeared women or provide affordable, universal daycare but has the strength to close women's advocacy offices and reduce transfer payments, resulting in the wrecking of social services such as daycare, public housing, and health care -- this Canada is strong for whom? It is a Canada with a strong privileged elite which holds all the power and dictates compliance from its citizenry by doing everything in the corridors of power and boardrooms of thieves of various descriptions parading as successful businessmen and leaders.

Women have long since rejected the arrangement of a strong authority figure at the head of a compliant, submissive membership. Women have equally rejected being "strong" women taking up the agenda of nation wrecking and war. Women have long since upheld the fighting traditions that our strength lies in our numbers, our unity and our collective fight for our rights and the rights of all. It is by establishing the necessary mechanisms that enable everyone to have a voice and take part in the planning, decision making and implementation of these decisions to build a People's Canada that women show their strength and creativity. A strong Canada can only be where the workers and their allies have the political power to change the direction of the economy to serve the needs of the people at home and abroad and provide their rights with a guarantee. It is only when political power is in the hands of the workers and their allies that the country will have the will and the strength to uphold the sovereignty of all nations, trade on the basis of mutual benefit and oppose the use of force to settle differences between nations. It is this fight which women have taken up and it is the successes gained in nation building which show their true strength.

All Out for Democratic Renewal!
All Out for a People's Canada!
All Out to Establish an Anti-War Government!

Urgent Need to Strengthen Public Enterprise to Protect Women Who Are Victims of Violence

- Peggy Morton -

The cynical and hypocritical claim that grants
are being provided to empower women and develop their leadership skills
is the polar opposite of women's real experience.

When Canadians hear about the government "bringing down a budget," the impression given is that this is a process in which funds are allocated to definite programs which are then approved by Parliament. In fact many programs are delivered through a process of discretionary spending in which the party in power can make the decisions about who gets funding and who does not, a process which is corrupt to the core and a means of exercising control and dictate.

Such is the case when it comes to violence against women. More than 101,000 women and children were admitted in shelters in 2008. On a typical day, over 7,000 women and women and children are residing in shelters. About three-quarters of women in shelters are fleeing an abusive situation, and for two-thirds of these women, the abuser was their common-law partner or spouse.

In 2008 there were 569 shelters providing residential services to women and children fleeing abusive situations in Canada, according to the 2008/2009 Transition Home Survey (THS) -- a biennial census of all residential facilities for female victims of domestic violence. There is a need for both emergency housing and for transitional housing.

The fact that women are in need of transitional housing reflects the lack of social housing in Canada and the refusal of governments to provide the right to housing with a guarantee. Women are particularly affected, as the average earnings of women remain at about 70 percent of average earnings of men. Women make up a disproportionate share of the population in Canada with low incomes, and women who are lone parents or single are especially likely to have low incomes and to live in poverty. Clearly this is not a problem created by women and is not of their making.

This social program required by more than 100,000 women and children in any given year is not however established as a social program based on the recognition of the right of women to safe and affordable housing for themselves and their children. There is no stable funding source, and it is left mainly to women themselves to organize and provide for it. Canada's shelters for abused women reported annual revenues of about $333 million in 2005-06. Most of the shelter revenue (about 80 percent) comes from federal, provincial and municipal governments, with the federal government contributing only about 10 percent of total revenues. The balance comes from fund-raising in the community.

The Shelter Enhancement Program (SEP) administered by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) provides financial assistance to non-profit organizations in the form of forgivable loans for construction of new shelters and repair of existing shelters. CMHC is the largest Canadian Crown Corporation in terms of assets with some $26 billion in holdings as of 2008-2009. It is the second largest Crown Corporation after Canada Post in terms of revenue with some $4.6 billion in 2004. This funding does not begin to cover the costs of building a shelter. For example the most that the program would contribute for a shelter to house 10 women and children is less than the cost of one modest single-family home. This paltry funding is used as an opportunity for the ministers responsible to travel the country making announcements, cutting ribbons and even producing phony cheques for photo-ops which make it look like the money is coming from the member of parliament or the Conservative Party.

Status of Women (SWC), does not actually provide any programs. It provides grants to non-governmental organizations "to advance equality for women" and is also responsible to work with federal departments and agencies to ensure that the gender dimensions are taken into account in the development of policies and programs. There is no evidence that it actually conducts any research and if it does, the results are not published. It appears therefore that its main work is to receive and approve or deny grant applications. Of a total budget of about $33 million last year, about $22 million went to approved projects and $11 million for SWC administrative costs. That is, for every dollar SWC provides in funding to projects, it spends 50 cents to do so. This does not even include the expense of the Minister travelling the country, not to mention the cost of doing damage control when she does. Recently Helena Guergis, the Minister responsible for Status of Women, was forced to apologize about her abusive conduct towards Air Canada and airport staff in Charlottetown.

Who benefits from this manner of allocating funding for necessary social programs such as emergency shelters and transition housing for women and their children who face violence in their homes? Clearly it does not benefit women who are in need of emergency and transition housing. Women are turned away from shelters on a regular basis in Canada because they are full. In many parts of the country they are not even available or they are unsustainably understaffed. The federal government accepts no responsibility to make sure that such a necessary social program is available where needed and does not recognize the right of women to be safe from violence. The NGOs that establish and run shelters and other programs dealing with violence against women are forced to deploy limited resources in an endless round of grant applications and fund-raising activities in the community. Funding is dependent both on the party in power and the monopolies who make their tax-deductible contributions from time to time as it suits them. Inadequate funding also affects the right of the staff working in shelters for Canadian-standard living and working conditions.

But for the party in power, it is a means to exercise control, its own version of "Own the Podium." Anyone who wants to be on that podium with the minister when the funding announcement is made better think twice about taking a stand in defence of rights or in any way appearing to be critical of the government. The cynical and hypocritical claim that grants are being provided to empower women and develop their leadership skills is the polar opposite of women's real experience. This message is even delivered bluntly to women's collectives who exercise freedom of conscience -- 'don't bite the hand that feeds you' or suffer the consequences. In this way the party in power considers the portion of the added value created by the working class which is claimed by governments for social programs to be its own preserve, an outlook stinking with corruption and patronage.

Women must fight for new arrangements which include increased investments to provide all the social programs which women and children need. It is entirely wrong for governments to not accept responsibility to ensure even the most basic requirement of women and children for safe shelter. This is not a woman's problem, but a problem of society and should be provided as a basic social program fully funded by governments and not left at the mercy of the party in power. Far from upholding the rights of all people by virtue of being human, and the rights which belong to women as women and provide them with a guarantee, this government is in contempt of what it means to be social and what it means to be human. It must be defeated!

Harper Government's Arrogant Denial of Responsibility for the Problem of Women's Impoverishment

- Elaine Couto -

On February 9 the Harper government submitted a 39-page response to the UN committee responsible for implementing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). In 2008 this UN committee considered Canada's failure to comply with its commitments under this Convention so serious that it asked for an update report after one year rather than the usual four. Urgent action was called for with respect to women's impoverishment and the inadequacy of social assistance programs. The committee recommended that minimum standards be established across Canada along with a mechanism to ensure that funds for these programs "meet the needs of the most vulnerable groups of women and do not result in discrimination against women."

The federal government has not reported any progress in implementing the CEDAW recommendations. It has completely dismissed the essence of the recommendation -- that it deal with the serious problem facing women and the society. It instead provided "information" "under the follow-up procedure" in the form of a lecture on the federal-provincial breakdown of powers in Canada and the province's monitoring mechanisms on their social assistance programs. Basically it told the committee that the well-being of half the population was not its problem and that it has no plan to act.

"Canada's failure to fulfill the social and economic rights of the most disadvantaged groups of women is a direct cause of violations of their rights to security of the person and to life," the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA) states in its report issued concurrently with that of the federal government, No Action No Progress. FAFIA has criticized the government's inaction in addressing these issues. Cuts to social assistance and the drastic decline in social assistance rates have disproportionately affected women and social assistance rates in all provinces have drastically declined since the federal government appealed the Canada Assistance Plan Act in 1995 and removed conditions from the transfer payments made by Ottawa to the provinces.

FAFIA points out that the CEDAW committee is not alone in its concern about women's impoverishment in Canada. Virtually every UN body that reviews Canada's human rights performance, including the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Human Rights Committee and the Human Rights Council has expressed concerns.

FAFIA's report calls on the Government of Canada to immediately establish a federal and pan-Canadian strategy for eliminating poverty; that includes a transparent monitoring mechanism and an impact assessment of social programs.

Canadian women must lead in building an opposition to a government, which can so contemptuously dismiss its responsibility to address matters of such grave import. Let us build an opposition of worker politicians which will take a stand in setting the direction of the economy and meeting the needs of the Canadian people.

Fourth Anniversary of Harper Government's "Universal" Child Care Benefit

Workers Need a National Child Care Program!

- Christine Nugent -

Four years ago the Harper Government introduced its Universal Child Care Benefit -- a hundred dollar monthly payment to parents for each child under six years old with the stated goal of helping Canadians "balance work and family by supporting their child care choices." To date, between $7 and $8 billion of the workers' money has been expended on the program, with absolutely zero results in terms of building the social infrastructure needed to raise the next generation of youth.

There have been no results either in increasing the availability of child care to working families and in particular to the working poor. In fact the number of subsidized spaces is being reduced as the Universal Child Care Benefit has reduced overall funding received by the provinces for social programs. Expansion of child care has slowed, with spaces available for only 20 percent of three to five year olds and that only if parents can afford the fees which range from $600-$1,200 a month. Modest and low-income families, Aboriginal and rural families, parents of infants and children with disabilities are especially excluded.

When the Ontario government announced recently that they were going to implement all day kindergarten for 4 and 5 year olds it appeared at first that this would assist low-income families. However, the announcement came with the proviso that there will be no renovations or building at the schools that will house the programs. This means that women in many impoverished Toronto neighborhoods with overflowing schools are denied access to the all day programs.

Meanwhile the just demand of Canadian women and workers for a national child care program gets reduced by the cartel parties into partisan bickering as they position themselves to get the "women's vote." Liberal Party leader, Michael Ignatieff claims he will make it the number one social priority of a Liberal government, conveniently side-stepping the uncomfortable truth that it has been part of the Liberal platform for thirty years and that after Chrétien's 1993 victory he set aside the sections of the Liberal Red Book that dealt with a national child-care program in order to "tackle the deficit." Finally, when the Martin Liberals put forward a national child care program in an attempt to stave off defeat in a minority government, they were defeated with the help of the NDP. As a result the country is now saddled with the Harperite anti-social offensive which is markedly anti-women to boot.

Looming in the background of all of this is the drive for private daycare being championed by none other than John Snobelen, the former Minister of Education in the 1990s Harris government in Ontario. He sits on the board of Edleun Inc., a new company soon to be listed on the TSX Venture Exchange that is looking to develop big-box child care in Canada. Snobelen's statement in a February 22 column of the Toronto Sun that "We can't afford all-day JK/SK" echoes the neo-liberal mantra, "We cannot afford social programs," but can afford to wreck the social infrastructure through privatization and pay the rich schemes.

At the time governments at both the federal and provincial levels are preparing to make further cuts to social programs in the name of fighting the deficit, women and the entire working class demand a national child care program which ensures the well-being of the children and creates the conditions for women to participate fully in the social and economic life of their society. All of it underscores the necessity for women to put themselves in leading positions in society so that no matter what, the basic rights of women and children including a national child care program, are provided with a guarantee.

Stop Paying the Rich -- Increase Funding for Social Programs!

Haiti

Women Honour Leaders Who Died in the Earthquake

Dominican Republic, January 27, 2010: The International Feminist Solidarity Camp Myriam Merlet,
Anne Marie Coriolan, and Magalie Marcelin (pictured in the background) is established in honour of Haitian women leaders killed in the earthquake. (Photo: International Women's Health Coalition)

On January 27, two weeks after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, Latin American and Caribbean women activists established the International Feminist Solidarity Camp Myriam Merlet, Anne Marie Coriolan, and Magalie Marcelin in the Dominican Republic. The camp was named after three women rights activists who died in the earthquake. The camp was set up as a physical and digital hub to provide ongoing assistance to Haitian women's organizations in the work of rebuilding their country, to ensure alternative media coverage of the situation in Haiti and to monitor the work of international aid agencies to ensure they pay attention to the specific needs of women and young girls.

On February 17 the International Feminist Solidarity Camp called on women around the world to include activities honouring the Haitian women activists as part of their International Women's Day activities. This initiative emerged from a women's meeting on January 24 in Port au Prince, and was then adopted at a meeting of the International Feminist Solidarity Camp Myriam Merlet, Magalie Marcelin and Anne Marie Coriolan, held in the Dominican Republic from January 26-27.

In their call they say "We are calling organizations throughout the world to join us that day to honour and mourn our loss of feminist activists which will allow us to revive and recreate momentum of the Haitian women's movement to continue the important work of our fallen leaders and the legacy they have left for those of us who continue the work"

"The main activity will take place that day in Plaza Catherine Flon in Champ de Mars in the centre of Port au Prince, a park that symbolizes Haitian women's participation to the war towards independence two centuries ago," they say.

"It is being organized by the Haitian women's organizations locally to acknowledge and honour the human suffering of the catastrophe in Haiti, promote feminist values based on the human rights of all, the struggle for well being of all in Haiti and urban planning, reaffirm feminist struggles despite the loss of significant feminist leaders, strengthen solidarity and display a MEMORIA which will take the form of testimonies, a mural and a slide show."

In the communique announcing the event they explain the significance of the location for the main commemoration. "Catherine Flon is widely regarded by Haitians as one of the heroes of the struggle to put an end to slavery, as she sewed the first Haitian flag on May 18, 1803 on the last day of the colonial congress session where leaders of the revolution at that session solemnly swore an oath to liberty or death on the flag which then led the slaves to victory and freedom. This oath is known historically as the Oath of the Ancestors."

On the activities of the three feminist leaders being memorialized, the communique says:

"All three leaders had a long standing trajectory in feminist activism reforming a judiciary that never took rape seriously, creating organizations and houses to protect girls and women against domestic violence and trafficking, publishing a feminist newspaper, expanding a documentary centre and an historical archive, and struggling for the protection of sexual and reproductive rights.

"Merlet was a feminist activist, and an advisor and former chief-of-staff for the Haitian Minister of Women. As an outspoken activist, Merlet helped draw international attention to the use of rape as a political weapon, and other issues related to violence against women and girls. She was one of the founders of Enfofanm, the first feminist information and documentation centre that also promotes women's rights.

"Magalie Marcelin was a lawyer, activist and actress, who two years ago urged women to pack a courtroom in Haiti, where she succeeded in getting a guilty verdict against a man who battered his wife. Marcelin was a founder of Kay Fanm, a women's rights organization that deals with domestic violence, offers services and shelter to women and provides microcredit, or small loans, to women working in markets.

"Anne Marie Coriolan served as a top advisor to the women's ministry. Assisted by their efforts, the ministry developed key initiatives to raise awareness of violence against women and created programs to help women gain financial independence. Coriolan was also the founder of Solidarite Fanm Ayisyen (Solidarity with Haitian Women, or SOFA), an advocacy and services organization."

Local activities in other countries for March 8 have already been announced by women's organizations in Chile, Argentina, Honduras, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Canada, and elsewhere. A special roundtable is being organized to honour these three feminist leaders, among others killed in the quake at the United Nations Headquarters in New York during the Commission on the Status of Women session.

Calendar of Events

All Out for International Women's Day 2010!

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