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Women in Canada Call on the Federal Government
to:
- Restore
federal funding to health care and enforce the rules against
the privatisation of our health care system, beginning with
Alberta.
- Spend
an additional 1% of the budget on social housing.
- Set
up the promised national child-care fund, starting with
an immediate contribution of $2 billion.
- Increase
Old Age Security payments to provide older women with a
decent standard of living.
- Use
the surplus from the Employment Insurance Fund to increase
benefits, provide longer payment periods and improve access,
as well as improve maternity and family benefits.
- Support
women's organising for equality and democracy by:
-
allocating $50 million to front-line, independent, feminist,
women-controlled groups committed to ending violence against
women, such as women's centres, rape crisis centres and women's
shelters;
- recognizing and funding the three autonomous national Aboriginal
women's organisations to ensure full participation in all
significant public policy decisions as well as providing adequate
funding to Aboriginal women's services, including shelters,
in all rural, remote and urban Aboriginal communities;
- funding a national meeting of lesbians to discuss and prioritise
areas for legislative and public policy reform;
- providing $30 million in core funding for equality-seeking
women's organizations, which represents only $2.00 for every
woman and girl child in Canada - our Fair Share.
- Fund
consultations with a wide range of women's equality-seeking
organizations prior to all legislative reform of relevance
to women's security and equality rights, beginning with
the Criminal Code and ensure access for women from marginalized
communities.
- Implement
a progressive immigration reform to:
- provide
domestic workers with full immigration status on arrival;
- abolish
the "head tax" on all immigrants;
- include
persecution on the basis of gender and sexual orientation
as grounds for claiming refugee status.
- Contribute
to the elimination of poverty around the world by:
- supporting
the cancellation of the debts of the 53 poorest countries;
- increasing
Canada's international development aid to 0.7% of the Gross
National Product
- Adopt
national standards which guarantee the right to welfare
for everyone in need and ban workfare.
- Recognize
the ongoing exclusion of women with disabilities from economic,
political and social life and take the essential first step
of ensuring and funding full access for women with disabilities
to all consultations on issues of relevance to women.
- Establish
a national system of grants based on need, not merit, to
enable access to post-secondary education and reduce student
debt.
- Adopt
proactive pay equity legislation.
Please
Note: Where these demands involve issues under the jurisdiction
of Quebec, the Canadian Women's March recognizes that Quebec
has the right to determine its own standards, programs and policies
in those areas.
This
document was produced by the Canadian Women's March Committee.
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