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As part of the Ad Hoc Coalition for Women’s Equality and Human Rights, NAWL maintains an ongoing campaign to pressure the federal parties to commit to concrete and meaningful measures to advance women’s equality. From the Coalition’s website (www.womensequality.ca): The Ad Hoc ...

Ce document est seulement disponible en anglais. In 1995, 188 countries, including Canada, adopted the Beijing Platform for Action, setting out a detailed plan for addressing women’s poverty, economic security and health. A decade later, the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action ...

My partner Carolyn Moffat and I (Carolyn Rowe) decided to participate in the Ontario test-case on marriage for same-sex spouses. This past spring, we drove down to Toronto’s City Hall where we applied for a marriage license. We were not granted or ...

Cet article est disponible uniquement en anglais. Ottawa rocked for three days in October, as the National Women’s Lobby (the national Canadian campaign that was part of the World March of Women Against Violence and Poverty) met with Members of Parliament, party ...

Working in coalition with Action travail des femmes and the Table féministe francophone de concertation provinciale de l’Ontario, NAWL played a role in the cross-Canada consultation process on reform to the Canadian Human Rights Act. NAWL submitted a comprehensive brief to the ...

CHRA Review Panel About to Submit Report Le comité de révision de la LCDP s’apprête à remettre son rapport After a year of work, the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) Review Panel, headed by former Supreme Court Judge Gérald Laforest, is about ...

Conservative Government Trying to Silence Women’s Groups Le gouvernement conservateur tente de réduire les organisations de femmes au silence In September 2006, NAWL was forced to shut its doors for one month because of delays in the approval of our Status of ...

Violations of women’s human rights happen in many different areas, from penitentiaries to national security policy to the application of the Canadian Human Rights Act itself. “Women have served their sentences in harsher conditions than men because of their small numbers. They ...

In the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Canada adopted an Anti-terrorism Act. NAWL spoke out against adoption of the Act. We argued that as women and as feminists, we understood the need to take action against terrorism. Indeed, we ...

Coalition pour l’égalité des femmes The Coalition for Women’s Equality (CWE) works with all political parties to create mechanisms that will ensure that the government delivers on the equality guarantees for women set out in the Canadian Charter, the Canadian Human Rights ...

In 1999, NAWL presented a Brief to the Canadian Human Rights Act Review Panel. We underlined the need for a better, faster way of processing human rights complaints. We urged the Task Force to recommend inclusion of social condition as a protected ...

The Problem More than 25 years the adoption of the Canadian Human Rights Act, women working full-time still earn 71% of men’s salaries, regardless of our age, occupation or education. For women of colour, Aboriginal women and women with a disability, the ...

In close collaboration with the Coalition for Women’s Equality (CWE), NAWL encourages women and women’s groups to get involved in federal elections and ask questions about women’s issues. During the Federal Elections in 2004 and 2006, NAWL helped the CWE develop a ...

Gosselin v. Québec… a disappointing Supreme Court decision on the right to social assistance. This case is about a Québec welfare regulation that provided drastically reduced benefits (170$ a month) for persons under thirty years of age who were considered able to ...

Québec has them, so why can’t the rest of Canada? Mothering a child is associated with a significant drop in income. It has lifelong consequences for a woman’s earning capacity and employment-related benefits like pensions. And that’s above and beyond feeding and ...

Along with abolition of mandatory minimum sentences of imprisonment for murder and offences involving a firearm, NAWL recommends abolition of the defence of provocation. 71% of all women who are homicide victims are killed by an intimate partner. Men are most likely ...

In December of 1999, NAWL presented a Brief to the Canadian Human Rights Act Review Panel. We recommended inclusion of social condition as a protected ground of discrimination under the Act. We also told the Review Panel that if the Human Rights ...

Over the past three decades, some 500 Aboriginal women have disappeared or been murdered in Canada. A 2004 Amnesty International Report documented the systemic killing of indigenous women in Canada, particularly those who were young and impoverished. The Report concludes that Canadian ...

Canada adopted the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1976. Countries like Canada that have signed the International Covenant must submit progress reports to an International Committee. Groups like NAWL can also present alternative reports to the Committee. In ...

Today, 73% of women with children aged 0-6 years are in the paid workforce. If women are to have equal access to the work force, education and professional training, good, affordable child care is essential. Women shouldn’t have to assume responsibility for ...