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British
Columbia Moves Backwards on Women’s Equality
Submission of the B.C. CEDAW
Group to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination
Against Women on the occasion of the Committee’s review of Canada’s 5th Report
| January 23, 2003
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INTRODUCTION
The B.C. CEDAW Group
1. The B.C. CEDAW Group is a coalition of women’s non-governmental organizations
that are committed to advancing the equality interests of women and girls.
The coalition came together to prepare this submission to the United Nations
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, on the occasion
of the Committee’s review of Canada’s Fifth Report. This submission
focuses specifically on the province of British Columbic (B.C.). The Group
includes: Aboriginal Women’s Action Network, Working Group on Poverty,
West Coast Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund, Justice for Girls,
Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter, Canadian Association of Sexual
Assault Centres (British Columbia and Yukon Region), End Legislated Poverty,
Vancouver Committee for Domestic Workers and Caregivers Rights, British
Columbia Coalition of Women’s Centres, the Vancouver Women’s Health Collective,
the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, British Columbia Region,
and the Women’s Working Group of the B.C. Health Coalition. This report
is also supported by the Women’s Committee of the British Columbia Federation
of Labour, and by the B.C. Government and Service Employees Union.
2. The B.C. CEDAW Group has been assisted in the preparation of this
submission by The Poverty and Human Rights Project, which is an initiative
of the Canadian Human Rights Reporter Inc., in collaboration with the Centre
for Feminist Legal Studies at the University of British Columbia. The Poverty
and Human Rights Project undertakes research, writing and education on
poverty as a human rights issue, and has a particular concern about the
poverty of women.
Review Time Period
3. British Columbia’s Fifth Report describes measures that were in effect
between 1994 and 1998. Almost all of these measures have been changed
or abolished since May 2001 when the current provincial government was
elected
4. The Committee’s review process will not be a credible one if Canada
can present its record to the Committee on the basis of programs that no
longer exist. The changes that the Government of B.C. has made are more
than the usual fine-tuning or improvements to programs that naturally occur
between the time reported on and the time of the Committee’s examination
of a state party. In this case, there is a wholesale withdrawal of programs
and protections. Consequently, if the Committee bases its conclusions regarding
B.C.’s compliance on the information provided in the Fifth Report, those
concluding remarks will be irrelevant to today’s situation.
Contravention of the Convention
5. The B.C. CEDAW Group respectfully submits that the Province of British
Columbia is failing to fulfill its obligations under the Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
in two ways. First, the Government of British Columbia is not fulfilling
its specific obligations to women and girls, as set out in the Convention.
Secondly, the drastic and discriminatory changes to provincial legislation
and programs which have been made since May 2001 violate the obligation to
“take, in all fields,…all appropriate measures…to ensure the full development
and advancement of women.” Central to the fulfillment of CEDAW obligations
is the understanding that governments will progressively advance women’s
exercise and enjoyment of their human rights. However, the Government of
British Columbia is moving backwards. It has dismantled the very programs
and protections that it points to in the Fifth Report as demonstrating its
compliance with CEDAW.
Interpretive Principles
6. The B.C. CEDAW Group endorses the interpretive principles set out
in the 2002 Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action Report to
the CEDAW Committee.
Marginalized and Vulnerable Groups of Women and Girls
7. In the following paragraphs we describe the harmful impacts of current
government policies in British Columbia. We note that these policies have
an especially pernicious effect on those groups of women and girls who
are most disadvantaged and most vulnerable. Specifically, elderly women,
and women and girls who are Aboriginal, of colour, disabled, lesbian, recent
immigrants or refugee claimants, living on low incomes, or living in rural
areas experience the harms this document details in particular and intensified
ways.
Aboriginal Women
8. Aboriginal women disproportionately live in poverty, with incomes
considerably lower than Aboriginal men and non-Aboriginal women. The average
annual income of Aboriginal women is $13,300, compared to $18,200 for aboriginal
men and $19,350 for non-aboriginal women. In British Columbia, Aboriginal
and women and girls are disadvantaged in many intersecting ways that militate
against their full development and their equal exercise and enjoyment of
their rights.
M. Morris, Fact Sheet “Women and Poverty,” Canadian
Institute for the Advancement of Women, online:
Canadian Institute for the Advancement of Women
(last modified: March 2002). [Tab 1]
9. Although jurisdiction over “Indians and lands reserved for Indians”
is formally assigned to the federal government within the Canadian constitutional
division of powers, federal legislation (s. 88 of the federal Indian
Act ) allows for substantial provincial control of Aboriginal peoples.
Thus, in practical terms both the federal and provincial governments must
be held responsible for the legal status and conditions of Aboriginal women
and girls and their communities. For example, provincially-provided health,
welfare, and education programs are critical to both on- and off-reserve
Aboriginal women and girls. Though both levels of government have jurisdiction
and obligations, First Nations women continue to be denied assistance, and
to receive piece-meal services because of the lack of clarity and the competing
interests of federal, provincial and territorial governments regarding
their constitutional, moral and financial responsibilities for providing
social programs and services to Aboriginal peoples. This issue was first
identified over 35 years ago, yet little has been done to ameliorate the
situation
H.B. Hawthorne, ed., A Survey of the Contemporary
Indians of Canada: A Report of the Economic, Political, Education Needs
and Policies. Vol. 1 and 2 (Ottawa: Canadian Department of Indian and
Northern Development, 1966) at 253. [Tab 2]
Canada, Interim Report: Shaping the Future of Health Care (Ottawa:
Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada, 2002) (Commissioner:
R.J. Romanow. [Tab 3]
Aboriginal Nurses Association of Canada, Submission to the Romanow
Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada (November 1, 2001).
[Tab 4]
10. In the paragraphs that follow we document recent changes to the judicial
and social service systems, including cuts to poverty law legal aid services,
the closure of all Native Law Offices, and cuts to welfare rates as well
as new restrictions on eligibility for welfare. These changes have particularly
harmful effects on Aboriginal women and their communities.
Immigrant and Refugee Women and Women of Colour
11. The changes to British Columbia’s social programs and legal protections
outlined below also have a particular discriminatory impact on immigrant
and refugee women because of their positions in British Columbia society.
Scholar Yasmin Jawani states that immigrant women of colour are particularly
vulnerable in their interactions with justice and health systems because
of their marginalization:
Lack of dominant language skills, [lack of] accreditation
of their qualifications, and the prevalence of racism and sexism, contribute
to the deskilling of these women and their subsequent ghettoization in
occupations that are dangerous and unprotected. As immigrants, they experience
the trauma of migration which includes dislocation, role overload, as well
as role reversal. The latter occurs as a result of their more rapid employment
in the labour force, albeit in occupations that are downwardly mobile and
marginalized. The isolation that immigrant women experience has been identified
as a key factor contributing to their risk. It is exacerbated by their
dependent status on their spouses…, resulting in an unequal power relation
and the potential for abuse within the family.
Y. Jawani, “Intersecting Inequalities: Immigrant Women of Colour, Violence
and Health-care,” (2001), Freda Centre for Research on Violence Against
Women and Children, online:
Freda Centre for Research on Violence Against Women and Children
(date accessed: 20 October 2002). [Tab 5]
12. Women and girls who belong to racialized groups, whether or not they
are immigrants, also experience the consequences of British Columbia’s
changes to social protections from within a specific social, political
and legal context. In evaluating British Columbia’s compliance with CEDAW,
it is crucial to consider the social, political and legal context of women
and girls of colour, and women and girls of colour who are also immigrant
and refugees. Changes to legal aid (see paragraphs 28-34), employment standards
(see paragraphs 71-79) and protection from domestic violence (see paragraphs
56-60) have a harsh and disproportionate impact on women and girls who are
immigrants, refugees and/or members of racialized groups. The reductions
of protections contravene obligations under the Convention.
Background to Canada’s Constitutional structure and
the nature of obligations under CEDAW
13. Canada is a federal state with separate legislative jurisdictions
assigned to the federal government and to the provincial governments.
Thus, the federal and provincial governments have constitutionally determined
areas of separate lawmaking ability. Each level of government is supreme
within its own sphere of legislative authority. The federal government
has sole authority to make laws in those areas assigned to it by Canada's
Constitution--for example, immigration law, criminal law, aboriginal peoples,
and the geographic areas of Canada's three territories. Provincial
governments have sole authority to make laws in relation to such things as
health, education, and welfare. Municipal governments fall under provincial
authority.
14. Some areas of lawmaking have both federal and provincial jurisdictional
aspects. Human rights legislation, for example, has been passed by
both federal and provincial governments. Federal legislation covers
areas that fall within federal jurisdiction--most notably federal government
employees. Provincial human rights legislation covers the bulk of
employment contexts as well as a wider range of services and facilities.
The content of criminal law is within federal jurisdiction while the administration
of criminal justice and laws falls within provincial authority.
15. This formal division of powers between the federal and provincial
governments can be legitimately circumvented to some extent by the federal
government's ability to spend its revenues in areas otherwise formally within
provincial jurisdiction and control. Thus a dominant feature of Canadian
political history is the exercise of what is called the federal government's
"spending power". By stipulating conditions to provincial access to
federal money, the federal government has been able to implement national
standards in provincial jurisdictional areas such as health, education, social
assistance, and legal aid. This means that in some of the areas of provincial
jurisdiction that are key to the advancement of women, the federal government
has, through the persuasive power of promising funding assistance to the
provincial governments, considerable legitimate power to influence policy,
programmes, and legislation. Consequently, the federal government, when
transferring funds to the provinces, shares political responsibility for
decisions about the character of state action so funded. It is essential,
therefore, that both federal and provincial governments be questioned and
be held accountable for social programs instituted at the provincial level.
16. Provincial governments, of course, retain direct responsibility for
the legislation and programs they implement, and for government actions within
the provincial sphere of legislative authority under the Canadian Constitution.
It is critical that the CEDAW Committee hold the provinces separately and
independently accountable for compliance with CEDAW.
Statistical description of women in British Columbia
17. Like women in other parts of Canada, women in B.C. have higher rates
of poverty than men, and lower incomes. They also live in deeper poverty
than men.
2002 Canadian Feminist Alliance for International
Action Report to the CEDAW Committee [Tab 6]
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