Thank you, Madam Chair and honourable members, for the opportunity to speak with you today.
I'll be presenting a bit of a different perspective today, I think. I am from the ninth-smallest municipality in Ontario, the Township of Pelee. I am honoured to serve as the township's first elected woman mayor alongside a majority female council, supported by our township's entirely female senior leadership team.
Our small and isolated island community is neighbour to Essex County, which is led by a female warden for the first time. Our provincial police services of the west region is led by a woman. The CEO of the health care network that supports our island is a woman. The director of the Crown corporation that provides ferry services to our island is a woman and happens to be a captain. The only general store and gas station on our island is run by women. The largest farming and privately owned estate winery operation on our island, and in fact across Canada, is led by a woman.
Women in leadership is just a first step. Imagine the landscape if that were the case for the next 100 years, or if it had been for the past 100. When women feel supported, healthy and able, they can stop focusing on keeping themselves safe, or fighting for a voice, and advance the work of creating prosperous environments for us all.
Women on our island and who support our island are not afraid of work. They work hard at their day-to-day jobs. In our rural municipality, generally they remain the caregivers at home. With no day care services, senior living supports or personal care workers on the island, many of Pelee Island’s women are going home at the end of the day and caring for their families and their neighbours, young and old. Women in my community are not only contributing economically; they are the backbone of caring in the community. They could use some help, though.
I am obligated to recognize some friends and neighbours who raise money on our island through an annual Hell on Heels walk in mid-October. About 20 of us walk in high heels—for most of us, it is the only time all year that we will walk in high heels—along a weather-beaten road the weekend prior to Pelee Island’s annual fall pheasant hunt. The weekend before a much-loved, historically fraternal tradition, which is now in its 93rd year, was chosen for a reason.
In 2021 we raised money to provide free period products in all public bathrooms. In 2022 we raised money to bring mental health care workshops and services to the island. In 2023 we raised money to start a potable water fund to help island families offset the very high cost of bringing potable drinking water into their homes. These socio-economic issues were selected to raise awareness around some of the well-being safety nets that are lacking and to raise that awareness with our neighbouring communities and some of our well-resourced vacation homeowners on the island, who may be able to help.
As well, our council has turned its attention to policies that support families and well-being. I am pleased that our council has supported a key family leave policy and passed an anti-harassment policy meant to protect our staff from the public harassment and bullying that seem to be on the rise.
Further, in partnership with the provincial ICON fund and the universal broadband fund, council is supporting administration in bringing a submarine cable to connect Pelee Island to high-speed Internet services by 2025, unlocking more potential, convenience and support for the women of Pelee Island in new ways that we are all excited to realize.
If women in my community can’t source day care, can’t enrol their children in school close to home, can’t find support for their aging parents, don’t feel safe from an abusive partner or neighbour and can’t see a doctor without a full day trip to the mainland, their economic empowerment is not possible. It's out of reach. I'm here to broadly highlight that primary education, senior care, health care, day care and policing are matters of economic equality for women. The Township of Pelee has little to no access to many of the agencies that are meant to support women. There are no mentoring programs. There are no skills training programs. There isn’t even a bank on our island. There are no women’s shelters or networking groups.
Unless these agencies are mandated and in fact funded to support our community, they can’t and they won’t. Pursuing women’s economic empowerment isn’t purely a financial matter within my community. The women of Pelee Island need support where they live in order to thrive and move beyond traditional roles of working in the home.
Island women help each other. They bring meals to seniors. They billet their neighbours’ children while away at high school. They keep an eye on kids on the ferry ride across the lake if their parents can’t go. They volunteer, they give back and they keep going. I am proud to attempt to be helpful here also today—to be their voice.
Thank you for having me.