West coast legal group releases report card on women’s rights in B.C. as international groups hear testimony about the disappearances of indigenous women and girls
West Coast LEAF has released its 5th annual report card on women’s rights in British Columbia. The CEDAW Report Card is West Coast LEAF’s annual assessment of how well BC is measuring up on international legal standards of women’s equality set out in the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). (more…)
In light of the recent news about a potential temporary closure of legal aid, access to justice is once again in the spotlight. Massive cuts to legal aid starting in 2002 have left BC’s legal system in crisis, with no poverty law and very little family law legal aid. “As the primary users of family law services, women are most impacted by the cuts to legal aid,” says Govender. “Our foremothers worked to ensure that rights for women would be enshrined in law, but unfortunately these hard-won legal rights have little meaning without the means to enforce them.” 
A new supportive housing project on Uplands Drive is underway and received a sunny kickoff from officials on site Wednesday.
Demonstrations were held across the country Thursday July 25, 2013 as a growing chorus of Canadians urged the federal government to release documents related to nutritional experiments done on aboriginal children decades ago. The protests, which varied in size, were sparked by a report published earlier in the month that said 1,300 children in northern Manitoba and at six residential schools across Canada were deprived of food and used as subjects to test the effects of minerals and vitamins in the 1940s and 1950s. [
