Another year and another International Women’s Day. It is a day we not only celebrate the gains women identified people have made throughout our cities, provinces, territories, and country, but also a time to re-evaluate how far we still must go in order to achieve true equity and social justice for all.
Last year, we spoke to you about the importance of community care. Community care is focused on well-funded public services, supports and programming that considers the whole person, from cradle to grave. It can be understood as a holistic approach with the person being wrapped in a system that cares for the whole person through such things as well funded and accessible education, health care or reproductive justice, just to name a few.
Across Canada, and especially on the Prairie provinces, those systems that support community care, such as education, health care, and seniors care have been under continued attack by far-right wing governments. Underfunding and understaffing of these public services have a disproportionate effect on equity seeking populations including women, and deficits are felt even more profoundly by women with multiple intersecting identities.
Women, in solidarity with other women, men and non-binary folks, must continue to pushback against these anti-worker, anti-feminist government policies.
We call upon all PSAC Prairies women to reach out and engage with their union and join a local’s women’s committee to help us do the work that still needs to be done. In light of the recent attacks on women’s’ reproductive health in the United States, we must be ready for that same fight which is at our doorsteps and we must fight to ensure reproductive justice for all.
Thank you to all the amazing women in and outside our union that show up every day in the quest for equity, justice and inclusion.
In Solidarity,
Sherry Hunt
Regional Women’s Committee Representative
Prairies Regional Council
Public Service Alliance of Canada
Marianne Hladun
Regional Executive Vice-President, Prairies
Public Service Alliance of Canada