CST Valentine's Day Action Campaign

Introduction to Valentine's Day Action (.doc)
Valentine (.doc)
Postcard Back (.doc)**
Postcard Front (.doc)**
Poverty is Policy Created Fact Sheet (.doc)

The Canadian Feminist Alliance is pleased to share with you information on a campaign regarding the Canada Social Transfer being spearheaded by a few of our member groups in Nova Scotia.  This campaign seeks to mobilize elected representatives in Nova Scotia to act to strengthen the federal Canada Social Transfer (CST) as a way to address women’s poverty and violence.

We are inviting groups to use and adapt the attached campaign material in order to build support across the country for a strengthened CST (please see below).  This is particularly important at a time when the new Conservative federal government has made a commitment to give the provinces and territories a greater role in social program delivery.

The Nova Scotia campaign is being organized to mark this coming Valentine’s Day on February 14 (in about a week!). However, the campaign can be adapted to be used throughout the spring, and possibly for International Women’s Day.

For more information on the campaign, please contact Rene Ross at 902-425-8047, or Nancy Peckford at 613-232-9505, x222.  

**Postcards which don't conform with size, design, and colour mailing standards can be rejected by Canada Post's machines. Please check with Canada Post before undertaking any postcard campaign.

FAFIA & the CST

As many of you know, the CST is a federal fiscal transfer (fund) sent from the federal government to our provincial and territorial governments to help finance a list of social programs. These programs include social assistance and related training, child welfare, civil legal aid, early childhood development, and post secondary education.  Until 2004, the CST was part of the Canada Health and Social Transfer. Since being split from the health transfer in 2004, many social justice groups have called on the federal government to increase the amount of money in the CST and to attach national standards for the programs that the CST has been designed to support.

FAFIA held a national roundtable on the possibilities for a strengthened Canada Social Transfer (CST) in mid-November during which time participants discussed the Canada Social Transfer as a mechanism for fulfilling Canada’s human rights obligations to women under our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and under the UN Convention to Eliminate All forms of Discrimination Against Women.  From this, we developed a set of principles which received support at our National Symposium in Regina, Saskatchewan in September 2005. A background paper was also developed.

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Framework for the Canadian Social Transfer
Prepared by FAFIA
(November 2005)

What is the Canada Social Transfer?

The Canada Social Transfer is a block transfer of funds from the federal government to the provinces and territories, ostensibly for the support of post-secondary education, social assistance and related social services. The current amount of the transfer is $8.2 billion per year.

There are currently no designations and no standards attached to this money.

Recommendations

That the CST be, and be seen to be, a mechanism for fulfilling Canada’s human rights obligations to women under ss. 7, 15 and 28 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and s. 36 of the Constitution Act, 1982 and under international human rights treaties, including the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). These include obligations to advance women’s equality -  taking women’s full diversity into account. They also include obligations to ensure security of the person, and to provide essential services of reasonable quality to women as well as men who are resident in all the provinces and territories;

That the amount provided in the CST be adequate to provide social assistance in the receiving provinces and territories in an amount that conforms with Canada’s commitments to the right to an adequate standard of living as set out in Article 11 of the ICESCR;

That there be national standards of adequacy set for social assistance and the provision of civil law legal aid (and perhaps other social services) to be met by provinces and territories receiving CST funds;

That there be recognition of Quebec’s distinctness and need to develop its own role with respect to social programs and monitoring mechanisms;
 
That the standards developed take into account the particular forms of discrimination and marginalization that Aboriginal women experience and that these standards be applied to programs and services provided to Aboriginal women who are residents on lands under federal jurisdiction, or governed under Self-Government or Inuit Land Claims Agreements, as well as to Aboriginal women who live off-reserve or not on Self-Government lands;

That the CST transfer of funds to the provinces be governed by new federal legislation (the Canada Social Programs Act) that sets out the above principles, standards, and designated programs for expenditure;

That there be public accountability for the federal monies transferred under the CST – so that it can be confirmed by the federal government and the public that transferred monies are being spent on programs for which they are designated, and that standards are being met;
 
That as a part of the accountability, or monitoring, system for the CST, there be a procedure which, among other things, would permit an individual or a group to contest whether standards set for social assistance and civil law legal aid are being met, and whether human rights commitments are being fulfilled.