Gimli,
November 19, 2005

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It was a cold November day when we arrived early morning in the town of Gimli.

Our workshop was co-hosted by the Interlake Women’s Resource Centre and the Manitoba Women’s Institute. It was a great opporunity for us to meet women from both organizations as well as other women from the community and surrounding areas of Gimli.

In the summer months Gimli is known as a great place to holiday and spend the summer in a cottage. During the cold months the population diminishes from approximately 6000 to 1500. One can imagine the struggles a town faces with the fluctuation of population.

We learned in Gimli, as we learn in every consultation, that decent and affordable housing is a key concern for the women in this community. As usual, lack of appropriate child care was another key concern.

The following ideas were generated by workshop participants as part of our gender budget consultations. Please note that this list does not represent the official position of the UN Platform for Action Committee Manitoba (UNPAC). Neither UNPAC nor all of the participants have endorsed these suggestions.

1. What are key concerns for women in your community?

• HOUSING
  • Adequate housing
  • Only three Manitoba Housing homes available and they are long-term housing
  • Condo company wants to sell the MB Housing (or low-income?) units
  • The transition time needs to be longer from when MB housing residents gain employment and have to begin contributing larger amounts of their income for rent
  • Stigma attached to using services as it is obvious to everyone in small community
• ISOLATION FACTORS
  • New initiatives generally start in URBAN areas
  • Rarely make it to RURAL areas
  • Drive to Winnipeg not practical
• TRANSPORTATION
  • No buses, no cabs
• HEALTH CARE
  • Serious problem for seniors
  • 5 doctors in entire community
  • Doctors are not accepting new clients
  • Many are left without a family doctor
  • Gimli Health Centre offers limited resources
  • Gimli is a “retirement Mecca” and therefore requires more health resources
  • Government seems to depend and rely on the locals to help themselves and others through their volunteerism and donations - Results in no one having time for new initiatives
• CHILD CARE
  • CC workers should be more highly valued and paid more
  • Limited spaces available
  • Only one licensed daycare (will accept subsidy) This has a two year waiting list
  • People who require CC can not afford it
  • Funding models DO NOT work for rural areas
  • Inwood (village near Gimli)– no daycare in school
• EMPLOYMENT
  • Women have to travel outside of community in order to find meaningful full-time work
  • Most work locally is seasonal or part-time
  • Women who are employed locally are focused in social services
  • Community tends to hire outside itself –
  • ie: teachers coming from Winnipeg
• RECREATION
  • Recreational programming taught by people from outside community
  • Training required for those within community willing to provide recreational services
  • No evening recreation available

2. a) What Government programs and services have really helped to meet women’s needs and concerns? How could they be expanded upon or made better?

• Healthy Child Initiative (Parent Child coalition)
• Meals on Wheels
  • Senior’s Resource Council congregate meal program brings seniors together during lunch hour
• Women’s resource centres
  • Receive money for child care and transportation costs
• Head Start Program
• 55+ Centre
• Victim First cellular — cell phones for high-risk persons. One button reaches 911, promoting prevention and reassurance (must remain within range)
• “A Woman’s Place” similar to a legal clinic
• Creative communications program
• Practical skills eg. Rug-hooking
• Education ie: domestic violence
• Friendship and mentoring ie: older retired women and those new to town
• Families First Program
• Evergreen Basic Need
  • Used clothing store
  • Food Hamper
• Family Violence Prevention program
• Cadet Program
• Advanced education and Training
  • Re-training
  • Adult literacy

2. b) Are there programs or services that should be stopped because they are not working?

• Changes should be made to VLTs, lotteries, and gambling in general (poverty, alcoholism, abuse, addictions)
• Voluntary mental health program (voluntary aspect doesn’t work — allows mental health workers to not deal with issues)
  • Voluntary aspect of mental health is questionable
  • It can put the family at risk
  • Too much left up to the individual with the illness
• Not a lot of programming available, never mind cutting any
• In small towns the person in job is critically important, don’t want to cut program, but staff need to be good
• Case management in separation, divorce and child custody
  • Women have to wait months for a decision
  • No monitoring of decisions made between times
  • 50,000$ in legal fees
  • Just gives lawyers more billable hours

2. c) What other ideas do you have for programs and services that could meet women’s needs?

• Listen to front line workers to direct policy development
• More Manitoba Housing units
  • Innwood burnt down
  • Said nothing happening in rural areas
  • Don’t not create housing because no one is on the list. No one is on the list because they do not believe housing to be available
• Problem — abusive men in jail getting three meals a day, education, opportunities and tattoos
• Kids paying the price for father’s abuse of mom
• Rights of the perpetrators looked after over the victim, sending too many double messages to children
• More funding for:
  • Housing
  • Basic Needs
    - Food
    - Shelter
    - Clothing
    - Transportation
    - Medicine/Health
• Focus on needs of female teens
  • Physical
  • Emotional
  • Social
• Newly single support services for women
• Lawyers/Legal Aid services
• Transportation
• Female workers by choice

3. Women often do not have enough money to do the things they need to do and they often do not have enough time to do the things they need to do either. Where are you crunched for time? What could the government do to give you more time to do the things you need to do?

• Manitoba Housing forms less complicated/long — 13 pages
  • Major assessment
  • Rural, huge problem
• Child Care safety and quality
  • Abuse toward children
  • No one reliable that she can afford
• Closer programming
  • Very limited educational resources
  • Local — drive to Winnipeg
  • Interlake — large area
• Provisions for travel
  • C.C. subsidy for women not on SA while trying to educate
• Women who leave violent relationships
  • Support for education
  • educational bursary program just announced in honour of Governor General’s visit
• Time — what does that mean for a rural woman to take an hour class a day
  • No distance education or study groups.
• Vehicles
  • Lose independence
  • Cross highway with children
  • Security
  • Transportation
• Family doctors
  • Have to go to city — takes a day
  • No specialists, always have to go to Winnipeg
  • No diagnostic centres
  • Lots of medical travelling — have to cover costs yourself
• High degree of dependency on volunteers
  • Seems higher in rural areas
  • “the more you do, the more people want you to do”
• Difficulties finding good full-time work
  • Two part-time business’ and two kids - always juggling
  • “I don’t want to be a waitress”
• Having to plan weeks ahead
• Having to travel to other cities to work
• Government should decentralize
• No time for “family fun night”
• No time for social time
• Self employment has potential, but also big risks and leads to more stress

4. What ideas do you have on how the Government could earn more money? Use the creativity you have learned from your experience as a woman living with a tight budget.

• Higher corporate taxes
• More tax for higher earners
• Equalization within province
  • SW MB (richer) — Interlake (poorer)
• Government too top heavy
  • Too many execs who are out of touch
  • Not enough front-line workers
  • Not promoting front-line workers but rather bringing in people from outside dept.
  • No sense of what their policies mean in everyday life
  • Hire people who have credentials and do a good interview
• Spend money on prevention and education
  • Poverty reduction
  • Health and nutrition
• Junk food tax
  • How would you decide?
• Tax gas for city driving
• Tax people who don’t recycle
• Tax # of bags of garbage
• Collect unpaid loans
• Close loopholes
• Out of Canada tax rule
  • Tax Walmart or give incentives to local business’
• Credibility and Accountability
  • All focus on small departments/orgs
  • What about at the top, provincial
  • Re-think expenditures of MLA, ministers — apartment in city on top of salary
• Interlake Regional Health Authority
  • oRe-think expenditures — administration
  • Health cost
• Resources are away from community
• Tax corporations that are not socially responsible
  • Penalize business’ that are deliberately polluting
• Sewage lagoon — water stewardship okayed to dump into lake? But not okay
• Volunteer based organizations
  • Volunteer hours should translate into $$ off income tax or a tax deduction
• More people inclined, makes government happy