Women’s Place calls for action

By Allana Stuart

Staff and volunteers from the Women’s Place joined thousands of people in the World March of Women Oct. 15 with a special purpose in mind. They were out to save their centre, but they went home discouraged.

The Women’s Place, an organization on Somerset Street that provides information, referrals to support groups and other services for women, recently lost its funding from the Ontario government.

The Ontario Women’s Directorate, a division of the Ministry of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation, has stopped providing an annual grant of $45,000.

The centre had been partially funded by the directorate since 1993. Now the Women’s Place is left to operate on the $58,000 in funding it receives from the City of Ottawa.

Women’s Place board member Samsam Ahmed says three other women’s centres had their government funding cut at the same time as the Women’s Place. Ahmed says representatives from the centre marched in hope that the government would consider the demands made by organizers of the World March of Women. The marchers paraded through downtown Ottawa and up to Parliament Hill, where organizers met with Prime Minister Jean Chrétien later that day.

The 13 demands included the establishment of a national child care fund, funding of $50 million to groups such as women’s centres, rape crisis centres and women’s shelters, and the adoption of proactive pay equity legislation. Other marchers say they were hoping to bring about changes in women’s issues.

“The provincial government hasn’t done a whole lot for women,” says Jennifer Whiteford, a 25-year-old Centretown resident. “Hopefully the number of people here today will show them that women are a voting power and that we make decisions.”

According to Ottawa-Carleton Regional Police, 15,000 people attended the event. Organizers say it was more like 50,000.

Organizers of the march say they were let down by the prime minister’s response.

Norah McMurtry, a member of the Canadian Women’s March Committee, says Chrétien told the committee to speak to cabinet ministers about the issues of poverty and violence.

“There’s a kind of slipperiness around who has to take responsibility for the demands,” says McMurtry.

“We’re disappointed in their lack of willingness to respond to issues that are really a matter of life and death to women in Canada and all around the world.”

“If the prime minister can meet with the women and say ‘keep up the work,’ I’m very discouraged,” says Ahmed. “I don’t have any hope that these demands will have any effect on us at Women’s Place.”

Still, Ahmed says the centre will make every effort to stay open by lobbying the government, seeking support from the community and fund-raising.

“Even though we’ve lost the funding, the answer is not to shut down,” she says.

“We’ll keep on fighting. We’re going to be loud. We’re going to let this government know that (it) cannot shut down these centres that help one of society’s most vulnerable groups.”