Federal Issues Impact Us Locally! Your vote counts!
The 2021 Federal Election takes place on Monday, September 20.
Go to the Elections Canada website to find out where to vote, put in your postal code to find your polling station and list of candidates.
Advance polls take place on September 10, 11, 12, and 13 visit the Elections Canada website, put in your postal code to find out where your advance poll is.
The Women’s Centre of Calgary believes that all children and families deserve equal access to affordable and quality childcare, but how do we move towards a childcare system that works for everyone?
New on the Women's Centre blog, read our post, Childcare and the Federal Election to understand how each party would tackle ongoing childcare issues in Canada.
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
The Women’s Centre hosted an event on May 5, 2021 in recognition of the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Gender diverse people. As an organization, we are committed to acting on theCalls for Justice laid out in the Final Report.
The final report on the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls was released in June 2019. There were 2,836 individuals who participated in the truth-gathering process and 231 calls to justice were recommended.
Working with First Nations to implement $2.2 billion over 5 years beginning in 2021-22, and $160.9 million ongoing, to address violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people through implementation of the Federal Pathway and the 2021 National Action Plan
Create a standing Federal-Provincial-Territorial table on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People to facilitate and coordinate this work
Work in partnership with Indigenous women, the families of the missing and murdered, and communities to implement the Inquiry’s Calls for Justice and the calls to action brought forward by communities
Establish a comprehensive, plan to address violence against Indigenous women, girls and LGBTQI2S+ People — ensuring that all those fleeing violence have access to culturally appropriate programming, emergency shelters and transitional housing
Act to ensure full gender equality for First Nations status as a matter of priority
Develop, in collaboration with Indigenous groups, a National Action Plan that addresses violence against Indigenous women and girls
Green Party
Not released at the time of this publication
Universal Basic Income
The Women’s Centre supports Basic Income Calgary's belief a basic income guarantee program would create a regular, predictable income, universally and unconditionally available to all who need it, and sufficient to provide for a decent life style and enable full participation in the community.
Funding programs for low-income Canadians including a 75 per cent tax credit for child care and doubling the Canada Workers Benefit
Green Party
Long committed to guaranteed livable income
Commitment to establish a “fair, national minimum wage”
Gender Equity and a Just Economic Recovery
In April 2021, the Women’s Centre hosted an initial conversation exploring the impact of the pandemic on women and how we could support a Just Economic Recovery.
COVID-19 has exposed and deepened systemic social inequalities and the pandemic has hit lower-income women—particularly those who belong to multiple marginalized communities -- the hardest. Whether we rebuild successfully following the pandemic depends on the creation and implementation of ambitious policies that address these inequalities and their roots. Specifically, we believe we need to achieve a fairer distribution of wealth, work, and care responsibilities that allows us to build a foundation from which all women and gender-diverse individuals can participate in society according to their unique capabilities.
Here are details on how the federal parties are incorporating gender equity into their economic recovery platforms.
Supports women’s entrepreneurship strategy and Expanding the Canada Workers Benefit.
Recognizes the impact COVID -19 has also been hard felt in the tourism and hospitality industry, as well as in the arts and culture sectors. Women represent half of workers in the tourism industry and youth make up a third. Similarly, women represent more than half of workers in the arts and culture sector, though women of colour and Indigenous women tend to be underrepresented. The Liberal platform proposes that the support programs outlined by them will directly benefit these groups
Recognizes that there are sectors that have been hit hard by the pandemic, those where women have suffered disproportionately
Includes a Canada Job Surge Plan and support for the tourism and hospitality sectors – that will get women back to work and help combat gender inequality
Prioritizes pay equity to put an end to gender-based wage discrimination, requiring employers to be transparent about pay and implementing and enforcing tough and pro-active pay equity legislation and regulations right away
The pandemic has exposed how our social infrastructure underpins our physical, social, psychological, and economic health. This care economy is critical to our survival during the pandemic and will be critical to our emergence from the pandemic
Liberal
Introduce new federal legislation “to ensure that seniors are guaranteed the care they deserve,” along with $9 billion in targeted investments over five years to expand the number and quality of long-term care beds, train up to 50,000 new personal support workers, and boost wages among these workers to at least $25 per hour
Proposing to convert the old non-refundable Canada Caregiver Credit into a refundable, tax-free Canada Caregiver Credit that will deliver up to $1,250 per year to eligible families
NDP
Promises to work with stakeholders to develop national care standards for home care and long-term care and to provide the resources needed to enforce them. This, along with several other programs, is designed to support seniors—including a national pharmacare plan, more supported housing, pension protections and the full restoration of home-to-home mail delivery
Proposing to extend pro-rated benefits to part-time and contract workers, and enforce “tough and pro-active” pay equity “right away”
Conservative
Proposing to target $3 billion of infrastructure funding over the next three years to help renovate facilities and to bring in a new Canada Seniors Care Benefit, paying $200 per month per household to any person living with and caring for a parent over the age of 70
prioritize immigrants applying to work as Personal Support Workers in long-term care or home care
