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Knocking the City of Ottawa as “not women-friendly,” a veteran councillor is calling for the city to create a women’s bureau at city hall and consider gender balance in municipal government decisions.
“You feel the momentum building in the last few years, and then there’s city hall,” Gloucester-Southgate Coun. Diane Deans said Wednesday. “If we don’t move ahead, we fall behind.”
Deans put council members on notice that she’ll ask for their support to make the mayor and staff consider a women’s bureau and a women’s liaison position on council as part of the next governance report in 2019. The governance report will set the decision-making structure for the next term of council.
Energized by the federal Liberals’ “equality” budget released on Tuesday, Deans sees an opportunity to make city hall aware of gender issues and imbalances in municipal governance.
The federal budget’s section on equality points out that 18 per cent of Canadian mayors are women. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) looked at local governments across the country in 2015 and learned that women made up 28 per cent of all councillors. Ontario registered 27 per cent in the FCM analysis of women holding councillor positions.
In Ottawa, only four of the 24 council members are women. Out of the nine city departments, three are run by women. The city manager and the director of the city manager’s office are both men.
Local community groups, like the City for All Women Initiative, have pushed city hall to make gender equality a priority. The city has had an equity and diversity policy since 2002.
Deans, who has been a council member since 1994, said she feels “like there’s momentum like never before” to address the gender imbalance in the city government.
Around this time each year, Deans wins council support to officially declare March 8 International Women’s Day in the city. On Wednesday she took another step, setting the groundwork to pursue concrete changes in city hall.
Mayor Jim Watson has created council liaisons for refugees, housing, sports and veterans’ issues. “I think the idea of having someone to speak and advocate for women and for issues important to women is a good idea,” Watson said.
However, Watson is skeptical of creating a women’s bureau at city hall.
“I’m not interested in creating a big bureaucracy. I’d rather see dollars go into resolving issues of gender equality,” he said.
Watson said if he’s re-elected in October he wants to ensure gender parity on all committees and boards that receive appointments from the city.
“We’re pretty close on some of them, but not across the board,” Watson said.
“We can’t control who’s elected, obviously, but we can control who gets appointed to everything from hydro to advisory committees, built-heritage committee, transit commission and public health board.”
In arguing her case, Deans points to a United Nations women’s empowerment principle that calls on companies to make sure their governance bodies are made up of at least 30 per cent women.
Deans said she feels like the city is “slipping back,” considering the low representation of women in the most critical decision-making areas of the municipality, the top being city council.
Council will vote on Deans’s motion, which is seconded by Somerset Coun. Catherine McKenney, on March 28.
jwilling@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JonathanWilling
查看原文...
“You feel the momentum building in the last few years, and then there’s city hall,” Gloucester-Southgate Coun. Diane Deans said Wednesday. “If we don’t move ahead, we fall behind.”
Deans put council members on notice that she’ll ask for their support to make the mayor and staff consider a women’s bureau and a women’s liaison position on council as part of the next governance report in 2019. The governance report will set the decision-making structure for the next term of council.
Energized by the federal Liberals’ “equality” budget released on Tuesday, Deans sees an opportunity to make city hall aware of gender issues and imbalances in municipal governance.
The federal budget’s section on equality points out that 18 per cent of Canadian mayors are women. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) looked at local governments across the country in 2015 and learned that women made up 28 per cent of all councillors. Ontario registered 27 per cent in the FCM analysis of women holding councillor positions.
In Ottawa, only four of the 24 council members are women. Out of the nine city departments, three are run by women. The city manager and the director of the city manager’s office are both men.
Local community groups, like the City for All Women Initiative, have pushed city hall to make gender equality a priority. The city has had an equity and diversity policy since 2002.
Deans, who has been a council member since 1994, said she feels “like there’s momentum like never before” to address the gender imbalance in the city government.
Around this time each year, Deans wins council support to officially declare March 8 International Women’s Day in the city. On Wednesday she took another step, setting the groundwork to pursue concrete changes in city hall.
Mayor Jim Watson has created council liaisons for refugees, housing, sports and veterans’ issues. “I think the idea of having someone to speak and advocate for women and for issues important to women is a good idea,” Watson said.
However, Watson is skeptical of creating a women’s bureau at city hall.
“I’m not interested in creating a big bureaucracy. I’d rather see dollars go into resolving issues of gender equality,” he said.
Watson said if he’s re-elected in October he wants to ensure gender parity on all committees and boards that receive appointments from the city.
“We’re pretty close on some of them, but not across the board,” Watson said.
“We can’t control who’s elected, obviously, but we can control who gets appointed to everything from hydro to advisory committees, built-heritage committee, transit commission and public health board.”
In arguing her case, Deans points to a United Nations women’s empowerment principle that calls on companies to make sure their governance bodies are made up of at least 30 per cent women.
Deans said she feels like the city is “slipping back,” considering the low representation of women in the most critical decision-making areas of the municipality, the top being city council.
Council will vote on Deans’s motion, which is seconded by Somerset Coun. Catherine McKenney, on March 28.
jwilling@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JonathanWilling
查看原文...
