Income gap between women and men no surprise; local women’s group to rally on Mothers’ Day
Grassroots Women Media Release
May 6, 2008

VANCOUVER, B.C. – A local women’s advocacy group says the Statistics Canada report released last week showing the income gap between women and men comes as no surprise and plans to rally in protest on Mothers’ Day.

“Women workers have historically earned less than men,” says Suzanne Baustad, member of Grassroots Women. “Women are often discriminated in the workplace because we take time off to have or take care of our children,” she says. “This inequality in the workplace is worsening with flexible labour policies pushing women into part time and casual work. Women workers are also being hard hit by rising costs of housing, public transportation and other basic necessities,” she added.

According to the report, in 2005, women earned 85 cents for every dollar paid to men.

The group plans to highlight the precarious situation facing many mothers in their annual Mothers’ Day march and rally …

“The lack of a national childcare program is also a disadvantage for women, often forcing them into flexible jobs or even out of the workforce,” says Baustad. “Single mothers are often forced onto welfare with rates being cut back because they cannot work and take care of their kids at the same time,” she added.

The group says the federal government’s $100 per month Universal Childcare Benefit implemented in 2006 in lieu of a national childcare program is a “drop in the bucket” to cover actual daycare costs which can exceed $1000 per month. They also criticize Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) as “the government’s de facto national childcare program.”

“Instead of implementing a universal childcare program and universal health program, the federal government has relied on the LCP as a way of bringing in Third World women, mostly from the Philippines to work as modern-day slaves in the homes of wealthy Canadians taking care of children and the elderly. Meanwhile, working-class mothers are left with little to no childcare options,” she says.

“For mothers under the LCP who have been forced to leave their children in order to provide for their basic needs, there is little to celebrate on Mother’s Day.”

“At the same time, Bill C-50 will make it even easier for employers to order up skilled workers as cheap labour,” stated Baustad. The group says the proposed changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act expose that Canada’s immigration policies are driven by labour needs and not humanitarian principles.

A Grassroots Women study in 2005, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” documented the difficulties women in BC have in accessing affordable and quality childcare. The group is currently documenting the experiences of women facing deportation.