(Montreal) The Parti Québécois is committed to creating a Ministry for the Status of Women, which would no longer be a secretariat, to curb the decline in the status of women. This new cabinet would ensure that the issue of domestic violence and feminicides is tackled head-on, the training promises.
Posted at 11:25 a.m.
A PQ government would set up a Ministry for the Status of Women, which would be completely autonomous. Currently, the Women’s Secretariat is part of the Executive Council Department. “As long as it remains a secretariat, therefore something that is under delegated in the structure, there is less power, less budget, less influence,” summarized Chief Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.
Surrounded by several candidates from Greater Montreal, the leader of the Parti Québécois promised a series of measures to tackle domestic violence, but also to ensure that Quebec remains an egalitarian society. “We see it everywhere on the planet, there are significant setbacks,” argued Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon, during an announcement at Maisonneuve Park in Montreal.
“In Quebec, we are a fairly egalitarian society, but we feel a need to act on a certain number of subjects,” he added. The PQ has already promised to reform the Pay Equity Act to give it more bite and close the wage gap between men and women. He also wants to change the Labor Standards Act to provide 10 days of leave for victims of domestic violence.
The day after the eighth feminicide of the year in Quebec, we “must react”, pleaded the PQ leader. Last year “There is a lack of resources, there is a lack of coordination and to ensure better prevention against violence, there must be structuring measures”, he maintains. In 2021, the province was rocked by 26 feminicides, a particularly deadly year.
The difficult months of the pandemic are no strangers to this sad record, believes the leader of the PQ. ” [Il y a aussi] a setback in general, we may have taken certain things in our society for granted and we realize that, when we have gains and we don’t take care of them, it can set back quickly, hence the idea we have of creating a ministry,” he explained.
This new ministry would have an annual operating budget of 50 million to oversee all state action in terms of women’s rights and the fight against violence. A secretariat would also be created within this cabinet whose responsibility would be to ensure the implementation of all the recommendations of the report Rebuilding Trust, tabled in December 2020.
Establishing a Secretariat for the coordination and integration of actions in the area of sexual and domestic violence is also one of the 190 recommendations of the transpartisan committee.
As part of the election campaign, the Group of 13 – which brings together nineteen feminist groups – demanded the creation of a Ministry of Women’s Rights and Equality in Quebec. This measure would be to “acquire the means to achieve real equality between women and men and between women themselves by obtaining more power within the machinery of government as well as an overall vision of policies affecting women, ”wrote the group in a press release.
Enhance resources
The Parti Québécois also wants to increase funding for accommodation resources for victims of domestic violence by increasing them to $460 million per year. We also want to set up an emergency fund for the basic needs of a person in an emergency situation. The PQ would also expand legal aid for victims of domestic violence by providing 10 hours of free legal services,