Thompson,
October 26, 2005

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Thompson Workshop
(November 15, 2006)

Summary of Consultation with
Social Policy class
(Thompson, October 25, 2005)

In Thompson we were greeted with our largest workshop yet. The group was incredibly diverse and many of the women were already quite active within their community. Many participants invited others who they thought would benefit from the workshop as well.

Once again we heard the same story we’d heard in other northern communities: the desperate lack of safe, decent and affordable housing. And again we heard of the limited spaces for childcare. We heard of violence and gangs, the lack of good public transportation, and the sexism and racism that are still so prevalent. Women had so many concerns for their community yet they also had many great ideas and solutions to the issues they faced. It was encouraging to hear of their resilience and their continued drive to enhance their lives, the lives of their children and the environment of their community.

We are grateful to staff, faculty, and students at the University of Manitoba Faculty of Social Work at Thompson for hosting our workshop as well as to Pam Logan for getting so many women out.

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?

• CHILDCARE
• MONEY — lack of it
• EMPLOYMENT & EDUCATION
  • Lack of equal opportunities
  • Accessibility of programs
  • Living wage
  • Unpaid work not valued — “Being a mom is an important job”
• COMMUNITY
  • Lack of communication/cohesion in community
  • Trust in smaller community to access resources
  • Lack of space for programs and services — people leave, get overwhelmed
• HOUSING
  • Acceptable
  • How to hold landlords/slumlords accountable
  • Not safe
  • Reluctant to speak up
  • Lack of repair work
  • Just happy for a roof
  • Lack of communication
  • Favouritism
  • Availability
  • Affordability
• LACK OF EMPOWERMENT
  • Women afraid to speak up — may lose job
  • More women need to get together
  • Stereotypes about being a single mother
  • Sexual harassment — jokes "just kidding"
  • Abuse/relationship issues / domestic violence
  • Divorce and separation
  • Self-esteem, learned helplessness
  • Not having or recognizing your own voice
  • Sexual exploitation — especially of young Aboriginal women
  • Recruitment of women into gangs
  • Lack of solidarity between women
• RACISM / SEXISM
• WOMEN’ S SHELTERS — in surrounding communities
• CHILDREN
  • Futures
  • Parenting skills
  • Families split up, spread apart
  • Supports for family and parents
  • "We always put children before ourselves"
• EDUCATION
  • Corruption in leadership
  • Challenge to access education / financial support
  • Opportunities/ lack of
  • High quality
  • Kids have to go 500 miles to get an education
  • Can’t qualify for student loans because of partner
  • GED — babysitting $
  • Bands might not fund
• SAFETY
  • Walking at night
  • Gangs
  • Much violence
• HEALTH
  • Nutrition, Food Security
  • Lack of physical activities
  • Mental health issues
• YOUTH
  • Exploitation of youth
  • Exploitation of young females
  • Teen pregnancy
• LEGAL AID
  • When men leave they know in advance that they are leaving so they apply for legal aid whereas women cannot because of conflict of interest and because there is only one legal aid office, they have to get another legal aid lawyer from another office
  • Legal system wastes time for women, especially those in school
• ADDICTIONS
  • Prevention and treatment is not meeting the needs of women
• TRANSPORTATION
  • Lack of available and affordable public transportation
  • Not available to low income families

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?

• More communication between programs
• Daycares — Split Lake/God’ s Lake
  • Need to meet the needs of women going to school and work
• New Beginnings / Head Start
• 15 children’ s programs network monthly, unfunded by government
• Hello Parents
  • Families First
  • Baby’s Best Start
  • New Beginnnings
  • Grassroots
  • Futures — for boys and girls who have been bullied, empowering them to speak up
• Crisis Centre — womens' and kids' shelters
  • Lack of funding for women’ s shelters
  • Low pay of shelter workers (for men’s programs counsellors needs Master’s or PhD)
  • Need more supplies like pillows and toothbrushes
  • Building in bad shape
  • Promote zero tolerance
• Diabetes
• Ma ma we tak Friendship Centre
• Thompson Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation — community capacity building
  • Lighthouse programs for youth
• Social Assistance
  • Not enough
  • Needs to be re-examined i.e. claw backs
  • One step forward, two steps back
  • What are we teaching our children?
• Midwife program
• Child Support
  • Not getting
  • Not empowered to ask because of situations like violence
  • Enforce it
• YWCA
  • LEAP — year to year, not stable funding
  • Baby’ s Best Start
• Family Services and Housing — Respite services 2 hours a day for support for women — Cut backs but a good program, should be increased in funding
• "zero tolerance" in justice system for domestic violence has helped
  • Many of these programs might be funded by the government but they are run off the backs of non-profits, working off their cheap labour.
• Social Assistance — more support for education so women can enter job force at higher level
  • Make it work for women
• Boys and Girls Club should allow parents to come, kids should be able to go to all centres

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

• God’ s Lake — NADAP, no meetings, no trust
  • Adult Ed. Program did not start
• Split Lake — Computer Program - paid staff, but no students
• ENTIRE JUDICIAL SYSTEM, NEED RESTORATIVE JUSTICE — look at the root problem
• Social Assistance — more support for education so women can enter job force at higher level
  • Make it work for women

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

• Provide a site that offers many programs
• Good, quality and challenging education in the north
  • Want more options than nursing, social work or business
  • Transition support for women in Thompson from various northern communities
• Subsidize good, nutritious food
• Incentives to encourage car-pooling
• BRHA has money for a Parent-Child Centre
  • Has 12 communities? Where to put it?
  • Costly for meetings
• Mammography
• More females in health positions
• Subsidize recycling, make it law
• Skate Park — help kids stay out of trouble
• Pay social assistance up to 6 months/1 year after a woman gets a job
• Compensate women for staying at home with their kids, incentives
• Pay women for homecare that they provide to their family
• Childcare — evenings, more spaces
  • Lunch programs too expensive so parents have to go home to make lunch for kids
  • On-site at workplace and schools
  • Kids in class, until they can go to daycare
  • National daycare program
• Buses — evenings
  • Transportation for moms to go to school, combined with daycare
  • Passes for financially marginalized — student or on social assistance
• Housing
  • Higher limit to get subsidies to fix housing
  • More affordable apartment housing
  • More houses not apartments, mixed housing
  • Single parents — affordable
  • Special needs families
  • Front-line workers need more training
  • Education residence for families
  • Row housing, co-ops
  • Accountability of landlords, need regulations
• Make education & training programs evenings and summer, not just daytime
• High school in community
• More programs for 13-29 — we are not all hockey players
• Family-based addictions treatment and healing centre
• Health (treaty status, access to services and medicine)
  • Medical and dental programs for low income families, everyone should be equal
  • No gynaecologist, get a different one everytime (can’ t establish a relationship with them which compromises your health)
  • Need more counsellors
  • Women dying because of no access to care, never mind the cultural differences
• Cross departmental meetings regarding clients — involve social assistance worker, support people, Child & Family Services worker, teacher etc.

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?

Crunches:

• Multiple jobs
• Parenting
• Studies
• Chores, messy house, laundry
• Expectations placed on ourselves
• Spending time with children/teenagers
• Care for aging parents
• Self-care — making time for self
• Taking kids to school
• Waiting time for doctors or emergency
• Parent/teacher days — what do you do with kids?
• Child care harder when child has special needs
• Lack of time, do not know what programs are out there
• School hours/kindergarten and work hours do not match to support parents

Solutions:

• Financially acknowledge the role of caregiver
• Centralize services “one stop shop”
• Better “living wage” and benefits
• Free health care — everything!
• Flexible employers / working hours
• School bus
• Food for tots program, hot lunches in all schools
• More daycares - 24/7
• Wages should be higher, women then do not have more than one rate ie. Child care workers
• Lower daycare rates
• Make heat free for daycares
• Nurse practitioners and midwives in all communities
• Taxi slips to visit doctor
• Employment & Income Assistance staff should explain policies to clients, lots of discrepancies, hear things from other people
• Presentation to students and moms about what is out there
• Lunch and breakfast programs
• Part time jobs with benefits
• Promote women’ s health — recreation, sporting
• Centralized recreations centres — saves time driving
• Self defence programs
• Babysitter’ s course

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.

• Split Lake — Computer Program, paid staff, but no students
• Examine wages/benefits of the leadership/upper management
• Reduce top heavy spending on salary/benefits
• Free education (affordable) not on the backs on teachers — economic development money
• Increase sin taxes
• Raise corporate taxes
• Re-adjust budget
• Don’t worry about debt and deficit reduction, spend next ten years on structural stuff like prevention
• Throw away current economic system and create a new one
• Inheritance tax
• Lottery winning tax
• Garbage tax
• Stop spending so much on crisis and work for the long term, instead of giving them a fish teach them to fish
• Where does the dirty confiscated drug money go? Speeding ticket money?
• Tax gambling
• Tax junk food. Subsidize health food
• Tougher on USA on natural resources
• Reinvent expensive justice system, move to restorative justice
• Tax on gold/luxury
• Child maintenance — enforce it