2 Minute Action for Pay Equity and Weekend Fem-links

This year, 2008, is the 20th Anniversary of the Pay Equity Act. The Equal Pay Coalition is mounting an Ontario-wide campaign to bring public and electoral attention to the need for Ontario’s pay equity system to be revitalized, strengthened, and adequately resourced and enforced. The Coalition, with its broad-based membership of trade unions, community and social justice organizations and business and professional women’s organizations represents over one million Ontarians.

As 2008 draws near, many Ontario employers are ignoring their obligation to pay women fairly. It is once again necessary to take action to ensure the promise of pay equity – a fundamental human right – is kept. Ontario women, without exception, are entitled to be paid free of the discrimination that pays them less than men


2 Minute Action for Pay Equity

Send a message to the Ontario government today
Sign the Equal Pay Coalition petition

Weekend Fem-links

• Last year, the CBC asked its viewers to vote on the greatest Canadian invention of all time. Among the fifty items on the shortlist were the pacemaker, basketball and the alkaline battery. Yet, the item that ranked higher than all of those three was the humble Wonderbra. Why did more Canadians vote for the Wonderbra than for the pacemaker?
• An interview with Harsha Walia, a Vancouver based social activist involved with refugee rights and women's issues in the Downtown Eastside.
• Heather Mallick writes about religion leaking into the House of Commons with a weird private member's bill (unborn victims of crime act) backed by religionists and the Globe and Mail online poll asking whether Dr. Henry Morgentaler should get the Order of Canada for his abortion rights triumph. (Readers slipped Heather a Knights of Columbus mass e-mail urging members to hasten to the website and vote against it, which they did.)
• Since 1990, more than 80 Nova Scotia women have lost their lives due to violence. The deaths of 33 women came at the hands of intimate partners, forever silencing their voices. The time has come to end their silence. Silent Witness Nova Scotia is a group of organizations and individuals working together to raise their voices. See this new website: Silent Witness
• Some doctors in Canada are denying pap smears to women citing religious objections. You read it right: doctors are using their personal morality to further restrict a women’s right to equal health care. (Cited in an essay written by Peggy Cooke - recent winner of Canadians for Choice’s essay submission contest that answered the question “Why is a pro-choice Canada so important?” ) For more information on pap smears visit this page.
• 62 per cent of women surveyed said they worry about the likelihood that they or their partner might need to go into a nursing home, assisted living facility or require care at home in the future - Only 49 per cent of men share the same concern
• Women more likely than men to look for health information on the web
• Females characters are sexualized, put down, or just plain absent in the shows your kids are watching. Where Are All the Girl Ninjas?