Recommendations to the Government of Canada on the Priority Theme of the CSW from NCWC

The following are inputs from NCWC members on the priority theme for the CSW -  "The empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development and current challenges"

1. The Government of Canada should seriously look at raising aid, and especially restoring  aid to Africa.
2. The Government of Canada should require women and girls to be recipients or partners.
3. The Government of Canada must address environmental issues in Canada to improve conditions however minimally for women and girls in Africa.
4. The Government of Canada must ensure full reproductive rights for women and girls through all means available.
5. The Government of Canada must ensure Canada can send less expensive generic HIV/AIDs drugs to Africa and other places they are required
6. The Government of Canada must use whatever means are available to assist rural women everywhere to get access to land, credit, technology and markets – for starters.
7. The Government of Canada must stop selling military weapons to southern countries and ensure women are included in peace negotiations.
8. SWC and other departments should ensure that Immigrant, and Refugee women, especially those living in rural and northern Canada receive necessary supports.
9. The Government of Canada needs to appreciate the increasing onslaught on women’s equality, and growing rates of poverty for women in Canada and worldwide. Feminization of poverty has escalated in Canada. Organizations supporting women’s issues have been defunded.
10. It is very important to have women in the Parliament, and Legislatures. We had a rural MLA here in Manitoba, Rosanne Wowchuk, and she did an excellent job of keeping the issues of rural women front and center.
11. Many rural women will be badly affected by any changes to OAS as often they worked hard on the farm, raising children and volunteering hundreds of hours to their communities but didn’t work for a wage and thus didn’t pay into CPP.  They only have OAS to rely on, if it is decreased/delayed or whatever it will have a larger impact in rural communities.  We already see increasing numbers of “older” women seeking services at food banks, mostly unheard of in the past.
12. The services that the majority of people (read urban as that is where they are) take for granted, don’t exist for rural women and men and boys and girls.  All the controversy about rapid transit means little to us.  Our bus services have been cut drastically.  Where we could take the bus daily to Winnipeg for work, education etc. we now need to drive.  We don’t have any choice of bus, rapid transit, bike or anything else. 
13. Rural families can’t access the income tax benefits of many activities for our children as the activities don’t exist; pools, gymnastics etc. 
14. In rural communities, there is always extra strain for social services to do more, provide more, stretch their limits to meet the demand.  We need volunteers more but have less people to draw from. 

15.  In preparing for the Federal Status on Women call for proposals that focussed on “Women Living in Rural and Remote Communities and Small Urban Centres”, there are groups in several rural MB communities who have submitted joint applications. The need is huge. There were two streams, one on violence and safety and the second on women’s economic security; in both the CFP asked for demonstrated community planning and an integrated community project.  This integrated community based approach works WITH local women as equal partners is key to empowering women to make improvements in their economic and social situation.  The minister can be affirmed on that point, and on recognizing that solutions are different in rural communities.

16.  Accessible educational opportunities for at risk women, especially for women living on First Nations Communities, and for First Nations Women who have relocated to other rural communities must be provided.

17.  It must be recognized by SWC, that abuse and violence is faced by rural women and there are added challenges of accessing supports in rural communities. These services are lacking in many of the rural and remote communities.

18.  There is a large ongoing issue for rural women that is enmeshed with the global industrialization of agriculture. This is observed by the:

                                                              i.      ever growing number of corporate farms,

                                                            ii.      decrease in number of rural residents

                                                          iii.      the move to corporately-owned seed that farmers have to buy each year vs. the traditional open source seed

                                                           iv.      stresses on the sustainable base of Canada’s farm land by these corporate farming practises.

These all threaten the ongoing health and wellness of rural women. Women and girls are the ‘canaries in the rural community’ who are first affected by reduced income, by lack of employment, by lack of affordable food. 

19.  Supports and funding for early education and child care, and for elder care are both major challenges for rural women. Again the more isolated the community, the larger the problem. First Nations communities are part of our rural mosaic and are horridly under supported  in these areas.  The labour needs assessment show clearly that the labour force is rural Manitoba is not growing (Portage la Prairie Labour Needs Assessment, Kelly and Associates , in process), and there is a need for aboriginal women to be increasing involved in the workforce.

20.  The Government of Canada  must recognize that Education and Training, child care, and family care are significant  barriers rural women face. 

21.  A comment was received about the benefits of the SWC funded project, delivered by UNPAC - UNPAC led Pathmakers program for rural women, which I'm part of, is going really well. One of the common concerns (there are 14 women) is that we feel we lack the opportunity to network. We are a diverse group of women - Included in our group are an immigration officer from Emerson, a member of Morden town council, two young mothers from Altona and the executive director of Genesis House, the women's shelter in our region. All of us are appreciating this program immensely.

22.  Finally, from UNPAC comes the following report on their consultation with Rural Communities: The number one issue in every single one of the 17 communities we visited during our gender budget workshops was lack of affordable housing.  Bad in Winnipeg, way worse outside Winnipeg.  We heard of women staying in abusive relationships because they couldn't find housing. Second issue raised was lack of child care options. Public transportation also a big issue raised.

23. In general, the shrinking rural economy (smaller farms and the removal of the cooperative CWB) and the continuing difficulties in bringing economic justice and opportunity to our northern and Indigenous population - entirely different than 'rural' issues alone - are major economic issues for women in Manitoba.
24. It is noted that there will be a direct impact on Northern Communities with the Crime Bill C-10. The effect on women who will be separated from their children for longer periods as a result of minimum sentencing and the lack of local community alternatives should be significant.