Feminist
Research
Education
Development
and
Action Centre
The FREDA Centre
for Research on Violence
against Women and Children
for Research on Violence
against Women and Children
The Status of the Status of Women Canada:
Co-opting Our Agenda
Emilie Coulter
From the May 1997 edition of Kinesis
Emilie Coulter From the May 1997 edition of Kinesis
Women's organizations are losing the operational funding they currently receive from Status of Women Canada, which will jeopardize the ongoing, day-to-day work of Canada's women's centres.
On March 14, 1997, Secretary of State Responsible for the Status of Women, Hedy Fry announced that program funding for women's organizations will be eliminated starting in the 1998-99 fiscal year. Monies from Status of Women Canada (SWC) will instead be given on a project basis, within the priority areas set out each year by SWC.
Sunera Thobani, past-president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC), says Fry's announcement is a major step back for women's organizations who fought for funding around a broad agenda of women's rights.
"The Liberal government is very sophisticated in wanting to co-opt the agenda of the women's movement," says Thobani. "This new funding arrangement will really restrict who gets funding and give SWC more control over women's organizations and determining which issues are priorities for women."
She adds that women's organizations that work on a number of issue areas will have more difficulty getting funding.
SWC consultations with women
Last year, SWC held its first consultation in ten years with "stakeholders" to discuss the future of Status of Women Canada, funding for women's organizations and independent research on women's issues. The consultations were held because the Liberals had just restructured the bodies responsible for dealing specifically with women's issues.
First, the Liberal government disbanded the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, a semi-independent agency, which conducted research on a wide range of issues as they affect women. The responsibilities and the budget of CACSW were moved over to SWC.
The government then merged the body that provides funding to women's organizations, the Women's Programs, into Status of Women Canada.
Between March and May, SWC put in a call for submissions from individuals and conducted six consultation meetings across Canada to ask for input into the future direction of the expanded SWC. [Ed note: A consultation for national women's organizations was held in Montreal, and regional consultations were held in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver.]
Many grassroots women's organizations say SWCs process for conducting its consultations was flawed. A lot of women's groups who are stakeholders were not allowed to participate.
The Fort St. John (BC) Women's Resource Centre was one of the groups not invited to the consultations. "How can you run a consultation with a feminist perspective when you're not inviting the front line, grassroots, feminist organizations to the table?" asks Centre co-ordinator Cheryl Kelly.
Many of the groups that were invited to the table say they were disappointed with the lack of time and funding available to them to discuss the issues with their constituents beforehand.
Theresa Woods of the Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) says that no money was allocated to NWAC to consult with Aboriginal women across Canada, especially in northern communities.
"SWC should finance the consulting of grassroots people. I should go out to communities where [Aboriginal] women are, before saying I represent them," says Woods. She adds that this was particularly important given that only three Aboriginal women were present at the federal consultation meeting.
Another concern with the SWC consultations was process. Many women did not like the fact that SWC provided a set agenda, nor the continual presence of government officials and the use of facilitators employed by SWC. Thobani says NAC had been asking for consultations with SWC for a long time, based on the model used by the federal ministry of justice.
"[Under this model] women's groups have control of the agenda and there is time for women's groups to meet by themselves with no bureaucrats present," she says.
Eileen O'Brien of the DisAbled Women's Network Canada (DAWN Canada), was one of the participants uncomfortable with the way the agenda was imposed on the women participating.
"Questions were set up in ways that pre-determined the answer," says O'Brien.
Lucille Harper of the Antigonish (Nova Scotia) Women's Resource Centre agrees. "[The model used] allowed SWC to pick and choose the issues that represented their agenda and not what women in Eastern Canada wanted to discuss."
Harper remembers with particular frustration that the format used dissuaded women from seeking unity. "Women wanted to come to consensus in order to send forward our recommendations to SWC in a stronger voice," says Harper.
Participants in the process were also concerned about the apparent lack of transparency of the consultations. "The process is not very open," states Thobani. "None of us have access to the submissions, and we wonder if equal weight was given to individual written submissions as those prepared through group consensus."
A year after the consultations, many women's organizations say it is now clear SWC did not really listen to comments from women actively working to advance the status of women in Canada. Decisions made by SWC around the two main areas of discussion during the consultations--funding to women's organizations and independent research on women's issues--are radically different from what most feminists participating in the consultation process were recommending.
Funding to women's groups
In 1973, the Women's Program was created to provide support for women's organizations working towards women's equality. The Women's Program provided two types of funding: project funding and program funding. Over the years however, program funding has became more and more like project funding, requiring a "specific program of activities, with clearly defined, concrete outcomes hat address the objectives."
Alison Reid of the Victoria Faulkner Women's Centre in Whitehorse says the direction being taken by SWC is very damaging for women's organizations.
"[Women's] groups have core administrative needs and require resources to meet those needs. Not every hour of 'funded' time can be given to specific programs which were developed months and months in advance."
Reid mentions the necessity of reacting to events in one's community as they occur, such as court cases, legislative changes, et cetera. "SWC needs to support and value this."
Josée Belleau of Le réllais des centres de femmes in Quebec says that SWC seems to be oriented to [funding] projects and not core activities, which are instead relegated to provincial funding." Not all provincial governments provide funding to women's organizations.
In 1990, the federal government attempted to cut "core" funding to all women's centres, as well as to feminist publications. When women in Newfoundland occupied SWC offices and other women began to do the same in their areas, the government backed down on the cuts to most women's centres (but not to feminist publications).
However, what was previously known as "core" funding became "program" funding and since then, that funding has been cut by more than 25 percent. The total operating budget of SWC in 1996/97 was less than $8 million, which translates into slightly more than 50 cents per year, per woman and girl in Canada.
No new organizations have received program funding since 1990 because of the "budget constraints." This has meant that new groups, in particular groups of Aboriginal women, women with disabilities, women of colour, and women living in rural areas, have not had access to the resources needed to adequately carry out their work. As well, the federal government does not provide core funding to anti-violence against women's groups such as the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres (CASAC) or the National Association of Transition Houses.
At every stage of the recent consultation, women's organizations pressed SWC to reinstate core funding and to extend this funding to more recently emerging equality-seeking women's groups.
In its Report on the Consultations and Follow-up Action Plan published in November 1996, SWC states that "[it] will examine what modifications can be made to its existing funding mechanisms, keeping in mind...the desire for more equitable access to funding." These comments were not accompanied by a commitment to increase funding available to the women's organizations.
SWC asserts that collapsing the program funding into project funding was done to address concerns about inequitable access to funding for newer organizations.
But women's groups reject this explanation, saying that SWC is pitting women's groups against each other--new groups versus established groups.
The real problem, many women point out, is that there is not enough funding for women's organizations to begin with.
"Women are calling for an increase in the overall budget for funding women's groups and not a redistribution of existing monies," says Thobani.
She adds that at the national consultation in Montreal, Hedy Fry made a promise that she would lobby federal Finance Minister Paul Martin to increase SWCs budget and funding for women's organizations.
"SWC needs to realize that women in Canada have expectations of them, that they are accountable to us. It is our money they are spending so our recommendations must be their priorities," says Thobani.
She adds: "Women pay taxes. Ultimately, this is our money and a little more of it should be dedicated to working for equality."
However, no new monies seem forthcoming from the Liberal government. "Either Hedy Fry is totally powerless or she doesn't think its worth it," Thobani surmises. "Neither of these bodes well for women."
Aboriginal women's groups also expressed concerns that funding for the Aboriginal women's programs will be shuffled over from its current portfolio under the Ministry of Canadian Heritage to SWC.
"Aboriginal women should be consulted nationally regarding where their money should come from," says NWACs Woods. "We have the capability to control our own programs. The Native Friendship Centres have been given the management of their programs. Its a slap in the face that we are not given the same control over ours. We want to administer our own work, so we can determine where we go and how we do it."
Partnerships with business?!
SWCs Report on Consultations also states that "The Women's Program of SWC will examine the option of matching funds... [and] will undertake a small number of pilot projects on partnerships involving different sectors." This is despite concerns raised by participants throughout the course of the Consultations on matching and partnership funding.
"It would be difficult to find funding [outside government] for equality work," Thobani explains. Women's groups will be made even more vulnerable. Government will use the fact that they can't find matching funds as an excuse to cut their funding by arguing that they don't enjoy community support."
Trudy Jones and Beulah Hayley of the Gander Women's Centre (in Newfoundland) also say that being required to search for matching funds would jeopardize the work of many women's organizations. "It would be a compromise. Time spent on doing your stuff would be spent on doing fundraising. [SWC is] not giving us enough money to keep us busy looking for more."
Partnership funding is especially problematic in rural communities. "Because were not dependent on industries in the area, were one of the only voices speaking out about exploitation in the workforce, harassment, labour standards and working conditions," says Jean Livingston of the Fort St. John Women's Resource Centre.
"If we're forced to seek funding by forming partnerships with corporations, fighting exploitation would be like slapping the hand that feeds us," she adds.
Monies for women's equality?
The Report on Consultations often mentions the funding of not only women's organizations, but also "other voluntary organizations committed to women's equality." At no time is a definition given of this latter group.
But women's groups fear that monies from the already sparse SWC budget will be directed to groups that are not working towards women's equality, such as the anti-feminist group REAL Women, or organizations offering programs directed at counselling abusive men as the way to deal with violence against women.
"The wording [in the report] opens the door to funding groups that are not feminist," says Belleau. "The budget is small. SWC should prioritize funding women's equality groups."
Accountability to whom?
Participants in the consultation process also spoke of the governments mistaken notion of the "inefficiency" of the women's movement. SWCs report declares: "SWC will develop an evaluation framework with outcome indicators for the women's program as part of the governments efforts to improve accountability for public expenditures." A working group at the Vancouver consultation took issue with the suggestion that women's groups are not efficient or responsible with the monies they receive from the federal government.
"Women's groups are run on extraordinary amounts of volunteers and underwaged labour. There is a lack of acknowledgement [by SWC] that women's organizations are underfunded and that women who are paid or who volunteer their time are overworked," the working group stated.
The Independent Policy Research Fund
In 1996, when SWC took over the responsibilities and budget (about $1 million) of CACSW, it moved to establish an "Independent Policy Research Fund" (IPRF) to administer research dollars.
Sunera Thobani says, suddenly the branch of the government responsible for public relations around women's issues was also being made responsible for monitoring the government's record on advancing the status of women.
"This is like the hawks minding the chickens," says Thobani. "SWC should, instead, strengthen the capacity of women's groups to do the kind of research and monitoring that CACSW was mandated to do."
Under the new research scheme, SWC would administer the fund and set the research priority areas. Other decisions, such as finalizing research priorities, selecting research proposals to be funded and exercising quality control over the research, would be made by a committee whose members are selected by SWC. [SWC recently made its selection of committee members. All six members are current or former professors at various universities across Canada.]
CASACs Lee Lakemen says that all national women's organizations at the federal consultation endorsed a very different vision of how research on women's issues should be done.
"We proposed that the fund be overseen and decided on by a team of national women's groups and that no research be funded unless it has been sponsored by a women's group."
Many women's organizations also stressed that the research had to be feminist. "When we heard it was going to be an independent research fund, we thought that they meant independent from government," says Thobani. "[But] SWC seems to want it to be independent from women's groups."
There are some positive changes which have been made to the research funding mechanism. On the recommendation of women's groups, SWC has agreed to fund participatory action research, and not just research based on traditional social science methodologies. DAWN Canada recently received funds for researching the effect of the CHST (the Canada Health and Social Transfer) on women with disabilities.
"[It is] one thing I am very excited about," says Eileen O'Brien. "It means that community groups can be included in research funding."
Urgent call for action
Sunera Thobani says that it is critical that women mobilize to challenge the direction Status of Women Canada is taking, otherwise many women's organizations may be forced to shut down. She says it is urgent that women act immediately, especially before the federal election is held.
"I fear that funding to women's organizations will get lost during the election given the number of issues women will be trying to raise with political candidates," says Thobani. "And after the election, whoever gets the portfolio responsible for the Status of Women will assume that the changes are a done deal."
According to SWC staff, to date, very few women's organizations have issued their opposition to the recent changes. It is critical that women let the Liberal government know they cannot co-opt our agenda.
Emilie Coulter is the coordinator of the Fort Nelson Women's Centre. She spends an inordinate number of hours every week ensuring that the centre, like other women's groups, remains one of the most efficient organizations in Canada.