Generated by the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action
October 2005

Context

FAFIA has identified a number of concerns regarding the possible establishment of a Gender Equality Act. The prospect of an Act has emerged given the recent establishment by the federal government of an Expert Panel on Accountability Mechanisms for Gender Equality. This panel is scheduled to report to the Honourable Liza Frulla, Minister responsible for the Status of Women, this fall.

The following guiding principles reflect much of what FAFIA heard from member groups at its National Symposium in Regina, SK, among other considerations.  We will be submitting these proposed guidelines to the Expert Panel and the Honourable Liza Frulla, Minister responsible for the Status of Women for their consideration.

Principles

Adopting the language of women’s equality

Use of “gender equality” language has obscured the fact that is women who are the disadvantaged sex. Not using the word women, and not openly acknowledging that women’s inequality remains a persistent and unsolved problem in Canada has lead members of the public, government officials, and Parliamentarians to assume that equality for women has been achieved, and that no more action is needed. The language of gender equality also provides a lever for men’s groups who contest women’s claim for equality. Far from assisting in advancing the equality of women, this language has become an impediment. This point has been made already to officials of Status of Women Canada and to Georgina Steinsky-Schwartz, the Chair of the Expert Panel.

For this reason, it is important that any Act be named the Women’s Equality Act, or Status of Women Act, and that the analysis undertaken be understood as designed to overcome the inequality of women.

* Acknowledging the full diversity of women

In addition, it will be important that the analysis that is undertaken and plans that are formulated for addressing women’s inequality acknowledge and deal with the diversity of women.

It is essential that measures taken to remedy discrimination or inequality will benefit all women, and take into account the ways in which different groups of women can be adversely affected by a policy or program because of their social location and the forms of discrimination that they encounter.

FAFIA recommends the use of an analytical framework which takes into account the intersection of sex discrimination with discrimination based on other grounds including race, language, ethnicity, culture, religion, disability, sexual orientation and socio-economic class.

• Making the connection with Canada’s human rights obligations to women

We need to be concerned about the disconnection between the development of government machinery related to the status of women, and the rights documents that articulate women’s entitlements. The rights documents (the Charter, international human rights agreements) state government obligations and set permanent standards for government conduct. Disconnection from rights permits governments to decide that women’s equality is not the government’s priority right now, or that it is too costly.

Any new legislation should state that it is a vehicle for complying with the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Charter and international human rights agreements, including CEDAW. The elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and the advancement of women’s equality must be named as goals of the legislation.

• Addressing longstanding deficiencies of the current mechanisms

A piece of legislation that requires every department to institute a process of analyzing and reporting on the impacts of new policies and legislation on women may be useful. But, if “status of women analysis” (SWA) is so narrowly focussed, it may leave the outstanding inequalities that women experience untouched. In other words, the practice of status of women analysis is forward-looking only, and not applicable to existing, long-standing deficiencies, the legislation would be of questionable use. It could result in leaving documented and glaring inequalities in place, while focussing attention on the disparate effects of new legislation and policies.

To overcome this problem, each department should be required to begin the process of status of women analysis (swa) by documenting the outstanding issues of women’s inequality that have been identified by women’s equality-seeking organizations that are related to each department’s mandate (health, immigration, justice, labour, etc.), and to each department’s legislation, policies or funding practices; and by developing action plans to correct these deficiencies, accompanied by time lines, allocated resources, and a statement of intended results.

• Incorporating a public reporting component   

The lack of transparency and public accountability to women and women’s equality-seeking organizations has permitted the continuation of an uneven, unmandated and poorly resourced process of analyzing the impact of government policies, practices and legislation on women. The worst examples of bad analysis and lack of transparency are: 1) changes to Employment Insurance rules in the late 1980’s and 1990’s that were held out as serving the interests of women working in non-standard jobs but which have, ultimately, had a disproportionately negative effect (that is still uncorrected) on these very women for many years; and 2) the 2000 - 2005 federal Agenda for Gender Equality, a follow up to the Federal Plan for Gender Equality (1995), which was not available in any public form subsequent to its release, and was unknown to women in Canada, despite the fact that Canada reported on it to the United Nations as a key plank of its post-Beijing follow up.

Public reporting is required as a check on bad analysis, and poor action plans, as well as to provide an opportunity for women’s equality-seeking organizations to participate in the development of strategies and legislation that will assist women.

There should be a process of public annual reporting to Parliament on each Department’s action plans to advance women’s equality, with time lines, and resources allocated and a statement of intended goals.

• Ensuring a consultative relationship with women’s equality-seeking organizations

International agreements and documents that address women’s inequality (the Beijing Platform for Action, for example) stress the importance of women’s involvement in the development of plans and measures that will affect them. Unfortunately, in Canada this is not yet a practice that we have established. Although women are seriously underrepresented at every level of government, governments in Canada have not developed good tools for compensating for this democratic deficit, to ensure that women can adequately participate in the formulation of laws, plans and budgets that shape their opportunities and conditions of life.

The effectiveness of any new legislation will rest on there being strong, core-funded women’s equality-seeking organizations that can have a vibrant interaction with government regarding plans for advancing women’s equality. It will also depend on specific funds being available to these organizations for the purpose of monitoring and interacting with Departments about their plans and progress in implementing any Status of Women Act.