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FAFIA alliance of 40
non-governmental women's groups calls on the Minister of
Finance to respond to UN criticism of Canada
April 30, 2003
The Honourable John Manley
Dear Minister Manley,
We write to you today about the recent review
of Canada’s 5th report on its compliance with the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) by the
United Nations CEDAW Committee.
Although Canada received praise for some
initiatives, in its Concluding Comments, the CEDAW Committee
expressed a high level of concern about Canada’s failures to
eliminate discrimination against women. The Committee made a
number of important recommendations that, we believe, must
be responded to seriously by the Government of Canada.
More specifically, the Committee recommended that Canada:
find ways to ensure that there is compliance with the treaty
in all jurisdictions; re-establish national standards for
social programs as a means of ensuring treaty compliance;
make gender-based impact analysis mandatory; make funds
available for constitutional equality test cases in all
jurisdictions; ensure that sufficient legal aid is available
to women for civil and family law matters; increase efforts
to combat poverty among women; accelerate efforts to
eliminate discrimination against Aboriginal women; eliminate
legislated discrimination against Aboriginal women;
sensitize Aboriginal communities about women’s human rights;
ensure that Aboriginal women receive sufficient funding to
participate in governance and legislative processes;
eliminate the provisions in the Immigration and Refugee
Protection Act which still discriminate against
immigrant women; reconsider the live-in requirement of the
Live-In Caregiver Program, and ensure that live-in
caregivers have adequate social security protection and
quicker access to permanent residency; assist victims of
trafficking through counseling and reintegration; step up
efforts to combat violence against women and girls and
increase funding for women’s crisis centres and shelters;
take additional measures to increase the representation of
women in political and public life; introduce
employment-related measures which will bring more women into
standard employment arrangements with adequate social
benefits.; accelerate efforts to implement equal pay for
work of equal value; expand affordable childcare facilities
in all jurisdictions; reconsider the eligibility rules under
the Employment Insurance Act and consider raising the
benefit levels for parental leave; redesign supports for
socially assisted housing based on a gender-based impact
analysis; disseminate widely the Concluding Comments in
order to make the people of Canada, and particularly
government administrators and politicians, aware of the
future steps required.
Because of the wide range and the importance of these
recommendations for all sectors of government, and because
some of them may directly concern your Ministry, we are
writing to seek your assistance.
The Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA) is
the non-governmental umbrella group responsible for the
assembly and production of the national NGO report on Canada
submitted to the CEDAW Committee for the purposes of
Canada’s 5th review. This report can be found on
FAFIA’s website at
www.fafia.org.
It is through this alliance that forty women’s organizations
have organized in order to speak to Canada’s obligations
under CEDAW. We now ask you, and other Ministers, to work
with FAFIA to design and implement a process by which
federal government practices and actions can be reviewed and
amended in light of CEDAW obligations, and the Committee’s
recommendations.
We also request that you work with us to design and
implement means of ensuring that “coherent and consistent
measures in line with the Convention” are implemented
in all Canadian jurisdictions. The CEDAW Committee has
underlined the federal government’s principal responsibility
for implementing the Convention, and has urged the
Government of Canada to find ways to ensure that treaty
rights are fulfilled by all levels of government. As the
CEDAW Committee notes, there appear to be no mechanisms that
women can rely on to ensure that treaty standards will be
met consistently in all jurisdictions in Canada. This leads
to women in some provinces, notably, at the moment, the
Province of British Columbia, - the sole province singled
out by the CEDAW Committee for critical comment - being
deprived of the enjoyment of their treaty rights, with no
obvious recourse.
The Government of Canada has a key role to play now, both in
meeting its own obligations under the Convention
specifically and, as well, in facilitating, motivating, and
monitoring observation of CEDAW obligations by the other
levels of government in Canada.
Canada’s reputation as a leader on women’s
human rights issues is at stake here. It was clear at the
review in New York City on January 23, 2003 that the members
of the CEDAW Committee know Canada as a key advocate for
women’s human rights in international fora. Canada also
receives international recognition for its aid to developing
countries for training regarding CEDAW obligations. (We note
that the Canadian International Development Agency recently
provided two grants amounting to 21.4 million dollars to
assist developing countries to understand their CEDAW
undertakings).We are proud of Canada’s international stance
on women’s human rights, and proud that it provides aid that
is specifically earmarked to assist women. However, Canada’s
reputation as a leader depends on its actions at home - not
just on its words, and dollars, abroad. The contrast
between Canada’s internationally demonstrated concern for
CEDAW principles and its domestic neglect of CEDAW
obligations was a central concern of the CEDAW Committee.
We are proud of Canada’s recent decision to stand by the
rule of law, and to refuse to endorse a war in Iraq that
contravenes established principles of justice and
international law. Now, with the CEDAW Concluding Comments,
Canada has another opportunity to demonstrate that it
believes in the rule of law, and in the value of
international agreements, standards, and bodies. By
responding in a serious and organized way to the CEDAW
Committee’s recommendations, Canada will show its respect,
in the domestic arena, both for international law and
processes, and for women’s human rights.
Canadian women need you to show leadership in Canada
regarding women’s rights to equality. Canadian women do not
enjoy social, political and economic equality with men. The
last decade has been a difficult one for women. Hard won
gains have been lost, and the most disadvantaged women have
been most harmed by cuts to social programs and benefits.
The CEDAW Committee’s Comments illustrate these concerns.
Thus, the CEDAW review process can provide an opportunity
for your government to look carefully at its policies and
practices and to respond thoughtfully, and in good faith, to
the concerns expressed by the Committee, and by Canadian
women through their NGO report.
In recognition of the key role of your
government, we therefore make the following requests:
1)
Please work with us to put in place a
serious, participatory, and transparent review process to
respond to the recommendations of the CEDAW Committee
regarding the practices and policies of the federal
government;
2)
Please work with us to put in place a serious
review process that will result in the design and
implementation of a transparent and public process of
national oversight to ensure that women’s treaty rights are
complied with in all Canadian jurisdictions;
3)
Please ensure that all review processes
attend to the specific and serious concerns of the CEDAW
Committee regarding Aboriginal women;
4)
Please encourage provincial and territorial
governments, and the Government of British Columbia in
particular, to comply with the terms of CEDAW, and to treat
the recommendations of the CEDAW Committee with respect and
responsiveness in their own jurisdictions;
5)
Please offer training to elected and other
officials in the provinces and territories to ensure that
they understand their CEDAW obligations, as well as make
available other supports which may assist these officials in
responding to the circumstances of women in their own
provinces;
6)
Please provide financial assistance to the
non-governmental women’s groups currently representing women
and girl’s human rights and equality concerns to provincial,
territorial and federal governments. These groups are
working hard to deal with the harms caused by the impact on
women and girls of recent government funding cuts and
programme restructuring. And, in carrying out such tasks,
they are clearly positioned by the terms of CEDAW as civil
society groups the government is obligated to support and
facilitate.
We understand the matters we discuss in this
letter to be urgent ones, and we look forward to your
response. Thank you for your attention to these requests.
Sincerely,
Shelagh Day
for the FAFIA Steering Committee
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