This International Women’s Day, Canada’s unions are launching a campaign with a powerful message for the federal government: women in Canada are #donewaiting for economic justice and want action, not rhetoric.
The CLC’s #donewaiting campaign outlines concrete ways the federal government can remove three key barriers to women’s economic justice: wage discrimination, sexual harassment and violence and the child care crisis.
“Women in Canada want equal pay for work of equal value. We want to be able to go to work feeling safe and secure. And we want to be able to go to work knowing our kids are safe and well cared for,” said CLC Secretary-Treasurer Marie Clarke Walker.
“Our campaign will build on mounting public pressure for decision makers in Canada and around the world to move beyond rhetoric to take action that will make feminist rhetoric a feminist reality,” she added.
The #donewaiting campaign highlights how different women experience these barriers differently.
“We know that Indigenous women, racialized women, and women with disabilities face higher rates of violence and barriers to support, wider wage gaps, and have a harder time finding and paying for the child care they need to be able to work or study,” said Clarke Walker.
The campaign invites people to write to their Member of Parliament to take action, and to share the campaign on social media.
CLC President Hassan Yussuff said that although the campaign is being launched in time for International Women’s Day, it will continue through until the next federal election.
“This campaign is about shaping an agenda for women’s economic justice in the 2019 federal election,” he said.
