Canadian Push for Equality Stalls or Regresses, Groups Claim - Building Gender Balanced Business

• Women’s groups have told the United Nations that Canada’s long and famous push for equality has stalled or regressed in many areas under the current government.

• “Canadian women have lost ground in many areas over the last 15 years,” Barbara Byers, executive vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress, writes as part of a report being submitted to a UN conference on women.

• By contrast, the government’s report to the same conference notes the near-record female labour participation rate, broader integration of women into a wide range of professions and more women studying subjects traditionally dominated by men.

• The women’s and labor groups denounced that report. “We have written our own document and it is a reality check on what the government is saying.”

• For instance, the report notes that while more women than men are pursuing undergraduate degrees, men with doctorates are twice as likely to be named full professors than their female counterparts. It also notes that Canada has slipped — to No. 49 from No. 47 — in female participation in elected office.

• And it puts the blame squarely on Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government, charging it with, among other things, ending funds that help women pursue equality rights court cases and otherwise reducing redress for unequal pay.

• One researcher for the report by the alliance of labor and women’s groups said that among university graduates, the wage gap has increased from a record low of 12.2% in 1991, reaching 18.4% in 2001 and changing little since.

• The two submissions are for a meeting to assess countries’ progress since goals were set at the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995. Harper has pledged to highlight women’s issues when Canada hosts the G8 and G20 summits in 2010.

Sources: The Canadian Press and The Star