Thank you very much.
My name is Jane Stinson. Thanks for calling us to appear before you as part of your investigation into why so many long-time women's and feminist organizations, including our own, were denied funding this year by Status of Women Canada.
CRIAW stands for the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, ou en français, ICREF, l'Institut canadien de recherches sur les femmes. It began in 1977 to provide a forum for feminist research geared to advancing women's equality. It aimed to produce evidence that would establish just how and where changes needed to be made. Maybe this is called advocacy, but it is also part of our original mandate. CRIAW also sought to bridge the gap or link the research capacity in universities with activists working directly in the community to bring about lasting changes.
For CRIAW, as with many other mature feminist organizations that have been around for over 30 years now, the Status of Women Canada was integral and vital in giving birth to our organization and others. In a special publication on the 20th anniversary of CRIAW, the president at that time noted that had it not been for the financial support of Status of Women Canada over the years, CRIAW undoubtedly would not exist.
So part of our question is, if Status of Women Canada was so important for the creation and establishment of this national, bilingual, unique feminist organization in Canada, why is it that Status of Women Canada is killing us now? Why did the Minister for the Status of Women this year decide to deny project funding for the first time to so many long-standing feminist organizations? As you know, for some this was a death blow. It occurred because for the past four years we have been feeling the starvation from the changes to the mandate of Status of Women and the funding criteria. I'd argue the starvation actually began even earlier. I believe it was in the mid-nineties when core funding was removed for women's organizations and feminist organizations.
The recent decisions are definitely a problem. They were the coup de grâce for some organizations. But the problems are much deeper. Minister Ambrose recently said in a television interview that Status of Women Canada chose to fund newer women's groups rather than older ones, but the significance of these decisions runs much deeper than a choice between new and old. It's part of the mounting evidence that this government does not seem interested in funding programs for women's equality or in funding feminist organizations with a track record of advocacy.
If the problem is one of needing to choose between different organizations, each with laudable projects, then there's not enough money going into the program. More money should go in if the problem is that there are far too many groups applying than money available.
We believe these decisions are more than just choosing new versus old. They're part of the Harper government's policies and actions of systematically killing the women's movement, the feminist movement, in this country and stifling some important voices, especially for the poor and marginalized women in this country. This is the effect of what is happening. Whether or not it's intended, this is the effect.
I'd like to talk a little bit about why it's important to change the funding criteria, to go back and really re-examine it. It's not simply a matter of providing funding to certain groups that were denied. That's important, but it doesn't go far enough. Research and advocacy are important for governments to fund. Research is about discovering new knowledge, new insights, and new perspectives. What feminist research has shown is that the reality for women is often different than that for men. As feminist research has deepened and expanded over the years, it also points out that the reality for different groups of women can be very different. So this nuanced research is important to provide new knowledge and new perspectives where action is needed.
Advocacy also really speaks to, often, lasting and systemic changes. Part of the problem right now with what's going on with Status of Women Canada only funding projects that provide direct services to numbers of women is that it results in band-aid solutions. It doesn't allow for projects that get at deeper, underlying, and systemic change.
Some people will ask, “Why should governments fund advocacy organizations?” They say, “Isn't that about funding groups to criticize government?” But that's missing the point of what advocacy is about. Advocacy calls for solutions to address problems and bring about changes. It just so happens that governments are really key players in that, so governments will often be the target of advocacy because they're important in bringing about change.
I'll just wrap up with a few concluding remarks.
CRIAW was very shocked that our particular project this time was turned down. This was unprecedented. We've never before had a project denied by Status of Women Canada. We certainly changed the nature of our projects to correspond with the new funding criteria. We worked closely with our project officer to try to ensure that what we were submitting would be appropriate and suitable for funding. There was never any indication that what we were doing was problematic. When we learned that other long-term feminist organizations had been denied funding, we became concerned that this was a pattern and that it required deeper investigation.
So we really urge this committee to do so. I hope you can go deeper than this discussion tonight with us. We hope you can delve into and clarify the questions about why long-standing feminist organizations were denied funding this time for the first time ever. Who was funded by Status of Women Canada? I see that they've published the list, but equally important, who was turned down? What kinds of projects are being funded by Status of Women Canada? That is maybe the most important thing to look at, to really fundamentally question and examine what the mandate of Status of Women Canada should be, because it has been so important for feminist organizations in this country. It appears that it now wishes to kill us off, certainly not to provide any stable funding that would help us grow and be strengthened.
We would like you, please, to call on the government and press this government to change its funding criteria for Status of Women Canada so that it will provide funding for research and advocacy, as it did previously and even before that, to establish core funding again for women's organizations and feminist organizations seeking to advance equality for women, especially the most marginalized. Further, we would really hope that you will call on and press this government to strengthen the mandate of Status of Women Canada so that it will establish programs to foster a vibrant and diverse feminist movement across the country. Part of this would be reopening regional Status of Women committee offices and hiring staff again so that they can work on implementing a renewed and strengthened mandate.
Those are my remarks.