Topic: Promoting Female Representation at High Levels of Politics
Country: Canada
Committee: Commission on the Status of Women
Historical Background and past UN actions
Canada has participated in the UNCSW since its creation in 1947 and the Government of Canada embraces its international roles and responsibilities as a world leader in promoting and advancing gender equality. Canada strongly believes that democracy should be a genuine partnership of men and women, to this end, Canada adopted a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that reinforces this belief by guaranteeing equality for women and at the 1995 United Nations World Conference on Women, Canada committed to “take measures to ensure women’s equal access to and full participation in power structures and decision-making” and to “increase women’s capacity to participate in decision-making and leadership. Additionally, in January 2018 Terry Duguid, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Status of Women announced $282,000 would be put towards funding for a project that will help remove barriers to women’s political and civic engagement in Vancouver and Surrey.
Country Position
Canada’s history has been shaped by numerous women, whose tireless work created crucial values of equality and justice for women; values which have been promoted and upheld as core beliefs not only in Canada, but globally. Despite the fact that women have made huge strides in the political realm all over the world during the past few decades, Canada believes there is still a long way to go. How can a democracy be deemed legitimate if it fails to represent half its population? Maryam Monsef, Minister of Status of Women, said “Participating in democratic and public life is an important part of Canadian identity – it is also a right we all share, regardless of gender. When we increase women’s participation in these areas, entire communities benefit.” Promoting equality for women and their increased representation in leadership and decision-making roles is a priority for the Government of Canada. It has done this in several ways such as:
In June 2014, Status of Women Canada released the federal Advisory Council on women on board’s report on ways to increase the representation of women on public and private boards in Canada
Status of Women Canada is funding over $4 million in projects that will empower women for political and community action in Canada.
The Women’s Program at Status of Women Canada supports eligible organisations to carry out projects to advance equality by addressing systemic barriers that contribute to gender inequality in Canada
The current Executive Council of the Government of British Columbia is the first to achieve gender parity in the province, with 10 women named to cabinet and one named minister of state
Women are equally represented on the Vancouver City Council, where five of the 10 City Councillors are women. They are also equally represented on the Surrey City Council, where four of the eight City Councillors are women.
The City of Vancouver has never had a female mayor. Dianne Watts was the first woman to be elected Mayor of Surrey in 2005, serving until 2014. She was followed by Linda Hepner, the second woman to be elected Mayor of Surrey.
Proposed Solutions
We, the delegation of Canada, believe that although the global progress of women in politics in the last century has been drastic, the rate at which the situation is improving is not fast enough and that steps should be taken in all countries to work towards more representative governments as it has been proven to benefit the entirety of the population.
We propose the introduction of quota policies in politics, starting from local councils. Women hold fewer than 25% of parliamentary seats worldwide and there is improvement to be made in all nations, Canada hopes to improve upon its statistics too as currently women make up 26% of our government. In 2013, 118 countries were recorded to be successfully implementing gender quotas so we have no doubt in it’s effectiveness.
Also, Canada recognises that there is and will continue to be backlash against promoting women in politics and it is important to prepare for this. We urge nations to address the reality that when women supposedly “trespass” on previously male dominated areas in society there is often a penalty such as sexual harassment, violence and humiliation and this can discourage women and slow the rate of progress. The delegation of Canada understands that reversing this mindset will be a slow process but encourages nations to work together and make a global effort to do so and use education from a young age and the aforementioned gender quotas to achieve this as well.
Topic: Tackling Violence Against Women
Country: Canada
Committee: Commission on the Status of Women
Historical Background and past UN actions
For many years Canada has been a strong supporter of eradicating violence against women globally and within the United Nations it has and will continue to support resolutions calling for the elimination of violence against women and girls. In the UN, Canada has contributed towards developing the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women. This led to the creation and renewal of the mandate for a UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its Causes and Consequences via the Canadian led Human Rights Council resolution on the elimination of violence against women. Also, Canada was highly outspoken on the issue of ensuring sexual and gender-based crimes were included in the draft Statute for the International Criminal Court.
The Canadian government will use its international influence to help prevent sexual and gender-based violence, including harmful practices such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation across the world. We are also committed to helping countries implement the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
Country Position
Violence against women continues to be a serious problem in every nation including Canada and the delegation of Canada wholeheartedly supports any efforts from any country to work towards eradicating violence against women. In June 2017 the government of Canada responded to gender based violence by releasing ‘It’s Time: Canada’s Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence’ which addresses and builds upon current federal initiatives, coordinates programmes and encourages greater action against gender based violence. The Canadian government believes that prevention, support for survivors and promotion of justice are the pillars of working against violence against women.
In addition to this, Canada recognises that tribal and indigenous women are some of the most vulnerable women worldwide and often suffer the most violence and hopes to work with other nations to reduce the violence suffered by this group in the population by providing more readily available crisis resources to these women and also by ensuring that education on gender equality is given to these communities.
Proposed Solutions
Globally, one in three women will experience violence in her lifetime, with most violence against women perpetrated by a current or former intimate partner. The Canadian delegation calls upon nations to collectively work to lower this heartbreaking statistic. We propose global budget increases similar to those in our own country, we do recognise and appreciate that not all nations have the economic capacity to do this so Canada urges more economically developed countries to help others as it is a global issue. This year, the Canadian budget for CSW will focus on some of the following issues:
- Preventing teen dating violence.
- Equipping health professionals to provide appropriate care to victims.
- Expanding the Gender-Based Violence Program so that more organisations, such as rape crisis centres, are better able to help population groups who are at the highest risk of experiencing violence.
- Providing support to sexual assault centres in close proximity to armed forces bases so that members of the Armed Forces have access to a full spectrum of supports to address gender-based violence.The Canadian delegation believes that these are some of the most pressing issues in today’s international climate but also appreciates that violence against women contains countless issues that all deserve addressing so we propose that all nations should produce their own list of priorities and allocate funding to relevant services that can minimise violence against women such as crisis centres.
Canada also believes that prevention is key and that education on gender equality should not only be given to children from a young age but also to adults so that this fundamental understanding of treating others fairly is passed on inside the home as well as in school.