Canadian Labour Congress wants government to address violence against women

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Times & Transcript Staff

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Santa Claus is not the only one who's about to see his mail box fill up.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will receive postcards from all over Canada over the next three weeks as part of a campaign to end violence against women. The campaign, called 20 days, 20 ways to end violence against women, was created by the Canadian Labour Congress to mark the 20th anniversary of the Montreal massacre when 14 women were shot and killed at École Polytechnique by a deranged gunman.

"On Dec. 6, it will be 20 years since 14 young women were murdered in Montreal simply because they were women," said Barbara Byers, executive vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress. "Ironically, as this anniversary approaches, our government is trying to eradicate the firearms registry, the one concrete measure taken to reduce gun violence against women."

The congress and its affiliate unions have distributed thousands of postcards and have asked people to send them to Prime Minister Stephen Harper between Monday and Dec. 6. The cards urge Harper to keep the gun registry and also contain messages asking that Canada improve the lives of women by improving funding for shelters for women and children, investing in new social housing, setting a national standard for welfare rates, providing equal pay for work of equal value, and improving services, including a nationally-funded child-care program, better public pensions and access to Employment Insurance. "Rather than promoting women's equality, the federal government is severely limiting women's capacity to organize, advocate and lobby," said Byers. "They won't support women's equality in the workplace and have limited women's rights to challenge discrimination before the courts. We will not accept an erosion of our hard-won equality rights and we will not be silenced by a socially conservative government agenda."

The New Brunswick Federation of Labour will kick off the campaign in Moncton Monday at 9 a.m. at the CUPE office at 113 Englehart Street in Dieppe. Local union officials will be on hand and joined by Beausejour Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc, who will sign a postcard.

"Hopefully the Prime Minister will get the message," said Sebastien Bezeau, of the local federation.