BC mothers rally for child-care

Child-care continues to be inaccessible
for many parents and the workers are
some of the lowest paid educators.

Reprinted from Burnaby Now
By Christina Myers

This article is the seventh in a series of eight feature stories RY magazine is presenting before International Women's Day on March 8th. Here we present a short personal story of the ongoing struggle for child care.

A group of parents at Taylor Park Elementary School in Burnaby have banded together in the hopes of creating a new out-of-school care program so that future parents won't be facing the same challenges they're now dealing with.

The group pulled together more than 175 signatures on a petition asking for a daycare facility at the school, which they're hoping to present to the city in their effort to get support and attention for the plan.

"It's a big problem," said parent Yan Xing.

Xing has a son in kindergarten and said she was on a waiting list for an out-ofschool care program at a nearby school but wasn't able to secure a spot in time.

Barriers, shortages: looking at reproductive rights and access across Canada

Women face many barriers to access to abortion, women's reproductive rights advocacy group Canadians For Choice (CFC) says.

The group has created a leaflet providing an overview of abortion services throughout Canada that can used as a quick reference tool.

(Download the PDF document from there site by clicking here)

The leaflet highlights the numerous barriers to abortion services and provincial/territorial differences in the delivery of services, and provides information that is not readily available from one source, CFC says. They have compiled this province- and territory-specific information `to educate and empower people to exercise their reproductive rights` CFC says on there website.

The leaflet follows-up from a 2010 Toronto Star investigation which revealed a shortage of abortion providers in Canada, where fears of violence, lack of training and other obstacles prevent physicians from providing the procedure. The CFC website also reprints the following facts which come from the Daily Women's Health Policy Report (2010).

Being a Trans-woman in Quebec is far from easy

             

Special to Rebel Youth from Clarté newspaper

If there is still a condition that can bring discrimination and abject humiliation in Quebec and Canada today, it's being a transgendered woman. Across Quebec, hundreds if not thousands of transgendered / transsexual (trans) people continue to suffer very bad treatment, violence and attacks, and almost complete rejection from society, in an atmosphere of indifference. Can we consider it normal that, even today, trans rights remains largely unrecognized by law?

The Senate has just nipped in the bud Bill C-389, which would have given the trans community a minimum of dignity and rights. This reveals the open contempt felt by the public authorities towards this community which is greatly in need of defense of its rights. Clearly, the Harper Conservative government has no political will to help trans people and, even worse, actually attempts to actively harm the community.

Education costs put heavier burden on women

Protesting the Charest increase in fees

People's Voice

Tuition fee increases disproportionately impact the access of women to education, an example of social policy perpetuating gender inequality, says a new policy report from a feminist research group at Concordia University in Montreal.

The report, authored by the Simone de Beauvoir Institute, was released as students mobilize for increased access to education. The Charest Liberals have announced a $1,625 across‑the‑board increase in tuition fees in Quebec. Across Canada, over the past three decades, tuition fees have increased by 400 per cent above inflation, pushing student debt to a record four billion dollars.

The Harper majority vs. women's equality

Protesting violence against aboriginal women

This article is the third in a series of feature stories RY magazine is presenting before International Women's Day on March 8th.

By Helen Kennedy

As we celebrate International Women's Day this year, let's take a look at the Stephen Harper's continuing agenda to roll back equality rights. How much more damage have the Tories inflicted in the first year of their new majority?

The anti‑woman policies of the Harper Tories have been well documented since they came to office as a minority government in 2006. The first move was to back‑pedal on the national childcare program and offer a stingy $100 a month tax credit. Dismantling support for advocacy around legislative and constitutional change was next, with the cancellation of the Court Challenges Program, the closure of most Status of Women offices across the country and cancellation of research and advocacy funding for women's organizations.

Despite statistics showing crime rates are flat or declining, the Harper Conservatives declared law and order a top priority. Legislation supported by both the Liberals and the NDP introduced mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes. Bill C‑10, the Safe Streets and Communities Act, is currently in Senate hearings. If passed, C‑10 will greatly reduce and/or eliminate rehabilitation programs and recast the criminal justice system towards punishment and vengeance.

Something fierce - memoirs of a revolutionary daughter

On September 11^th, 1973 a CIA-supported coup smashed the socialist and democratically elected Allende government of Chile. By the end of the day, Chile had taken a rapid descent into fascism and the dictatorship of General Pinochet had begun, as well as and the murder or persecution of hundreds of thousands of labour, left-wing, socialist and communist activists had begun – including women like Carmen Aguirre's mother.

Something Fierce is Carmen Aguirre's memoir of a young woman growing up in a Chilean-Canadian family that heads back to fight the Pinochet regime. The book was published just last spring, and has already garnered rave reviews and been named to the longlist of the B.C. National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction and the CBCs Canada Reads contest.

It is not well known but the Canadian government also supported the US actions against Allende’s Chile, like the pre-coup embargo attempting to destabilize the country.

The Globe and Mail welcomed the Pinochet regime two days the coup and, commenting on events at the time, Canadian Ambassador to Chile Andrew Ross stated, "You have to remember, this is South America," as if that somehow justified Canadian support of a fascist dictatorship.

This makes Carmen’s story doubly interesting.  While the Canadian government welcomed tens of thousands of families fleeing socialist governments from Europe and South-East Asia, only two thousand political prisoners were accepted from Chile.

Here, as part of a series of articles leading-up to International Women's Day 2012, Rebel Youth presents an excerpt from the book and what a young feminist reviewer is saying about it.

IWD 2012

Message from the Communist Party of Canada and the Young Communist League
March 8 is a day to honour women's struggles, take stock of hard‑won gains, and to demand full equality.

This year, International Women's Day comes amidst inspiring new struggles. The global Occupy Movement has exposed the growing income gap and political power disparity between the wealthiest 1% and the other 99%. Working people in Europe are conducting huge struggles against austerity measures.

Across the capitalist world, women are disproportionately paying the price for bailouts of the banks and major corporations, neo‑liberal cuts to social programs, public service layoffs and massive tuition increases.

In Canada, IWD 2012 comes amidst intense attacks by corporations upon the hard won pensions of workers, and by governments upon public pension plans. These attacks have the sharpest impact on women, given their lower average incomes, and higher rates of poverty.