Gender Equality Plan Consultation
Researchers affiliated with York University’s Centre for Feminist Research (Barbara Cameron, Meg Luxton and Ann Porter) are partnering with the Canadian Feminist Alliance on International Action (FAFIA) around a public engagement exercise organized around the proposal for a Canadian Gender Equality Plan. The call for such a Plan comes out of the participation of feminist organizations, including the BC CEDAW group and FAFIA, in the United Nations’ review in October 2016 of Canada’s compliance with obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). In its Concluding Observations, the UN CEDAW Committee called on the federal government to “develop a comprehensive national gender strategy, policy and action plan that addresses the structural factors causing persistent, including intersecting forms of discrimination, against women and girls, with a special focus on disadvantaged groups of women and girls”. This recommendation has been taken up by FAFIA with the support of a broad range of organizations supporting women’s human rights.
The exercise will focus on consultations with women’s human rights organizations that are members of FAFIA and related organizations using a method that combines in-person discussions in dispersed geographic locations with the use of information and communications technology. The goal of this pilot is to determine the effectiveness of this method for facilitating a Canada-wide feminist policy discussion on a range of issues. The engagement exercise around a Canadian Gender Equality Plan is being designed in collaboration with FAFIA and will take place in the second year of the Engendering Public Engagement, Democratizing Public Space project (2017/2018).