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Listen to the 90-minute session on Sex and Taxes in N.B. with tax policy expert and law professor Kathleen Lahey of Queen's University (Fredericton, 12 August 2008). You should have the following document at hand while listening (the speaker refers to it): "What About Women Figures and Tables"
» WHAT ABOUT WOMEN? GENDER ANALYSIS OF DISCUSSION PAPER ON N.B.'S TAX SYSTEM
Queen's University Professor Kathleen A. Lahey studied the N.B. government's proposed tax reform and its probable impact on women, men and equality. Her groundbreaking analysis, the first on a prospective tax reform package in Canada, concludes the proposals would widen the existing gap between women's and men's total incomes, taxable incomes, and consumable (aftertax) incomes and seriously impair and destabilize the existing tax bases, with the result that the government will be able to plead poverty when faced with demands for adequate childcare resources, low-income supports and development projects that are capable of helping N.B. women overcome their disadvantaged economic status.
-- Report
-- Media release, 12 August, 2008
Opinion piece by Ginette Petitpas-Taylor, Chairperson of the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women, June 26, 2008
We should be hard-headed about poverty in New Brunswick - "hard-headed" as in focussed and scientific about finding and doing what works to eliminate poverty. Some current poverty programs, here and in other jurisdictions, may have the effect of keeping people poor, for all the care that goes into what gets called a "poverty program". What is worse, effective programs may be undone by other initiatives, given the lack of coordination and of monitoring. As the president of MIT said recently, if we approved new drugs the way we approve poverty programs, we would put on the market all drugs that were being taken by anyone whose symptoms improved, whether because of the drug or for some unrelated reason.
-- From the column by Chairperson Ginette Petitpas-Taylor in the Times & Transcript, July 17, 2008.
If you share living arrangements while receiving social assistance payments, the government ... jumps to conclusions. You are in an economic household unit, a kind of family only found when social assistance recipients are involved. It's defined as two or more persons living together who share the responsibilities of the household, and benefit economically from the sharing of food, shelter and/or facilities even though there is no marital, familial, or conjugal relationship among the members of the household. The minute you share a living space, for whatever reason, it makes you into a pseudo-family, a financial family-of-convenience, if you will. But it's for the government's convenience only. You'll benefit from none of the financial perks usually associated with family life.
-- From the column by Chairperson Ginette Petitpas-Taylor, Moncton Times & Transcript, July 10, 2008.
» THE ONLY THING MORE BORING THAN TAX REFORM, IS TAX REFORM IN JULY?
Anyone concerned with equality should participate in what is happening this summer in New Brunswick - get informed and at least send a message with your concerns and priorities. New Brunswickers have until July 10, 2008 to meet with the travelling Legislative committee, and until August 1 to send in a written text. The Advisory Council is preparing a brief and a public event, but meanwhile here are some resources:
Government's Discussion Paper on N.B.'s Tax System:www.gnb.ca/legis/Promos/Public_Hearings/Tax_Review/index-e.asp
A list of documents, most with online links, on taxation, equality, families, gender, etc.
Sample questions to ask while preparing your submission - or to ask the committee to report on:
Some information about the relative situation of women and men in New Brunswick:
Additional resources:
National Anti-Poverty Organization, Submission to the NB Legislative Assembly Select Committee on Tax Review -August 1, 2008.
Presentation by Bonny Pond & Auguste Gallant -Moncton, July 2008.
What about women's share in NB's tax system?
- Brief by the Coalition for Pay Equity, July 2008.
Bring federal taxation in line with women's needs Report, Norma Greenaway, Canwest News Service June 16, 2008.
Faire payer les riches : mode d'emploi, Jean-François Lisée, L'Actualité, 15 mars 2008.
Poor, middle-income earners did not share in wealth boom, Rick Goldman, The Gazette, May 16, 2008.
Single tax would benefit the rich, Neil Brooks, The Gazette, April 30, 2008.
Réforme fiscale: baisse d'impôts, hausse de TVH en vue, Charles-Antoine Gagnon, L'Acadie Nouvelle, 5 juin 2008.
Réforme fiscale: avantage aux gens a haut revenu et aux grandes entreprises, L'Acadie Nouvelle, 11 juin 2008.
Tax revolution, Daniel McHardie, Telegraph-Journal, June 5, 2008.
That's what several N.B. women's groups told the provincial legislative committee that is ending a short consultation on proposals to reform taxation in the province, the first formal review of provincial taxation in nearly two decades. The groups denounced the fact that the government's discussion paper makes no mention of the impact of proposed reforms on equality or on the relative position of women and men. They urged the committee and the Minister Responsible for the Status of Women Mary Schryer to ensure that changes are made to the process underway and that a diversity and gender analysis is carried out.
» DIFFERENT IMPACT ON DIFFERENT GROUPS
The provincial government's discussion paper on tax reform is silent on important questions that would be raised in a diversity or gender-based analysis. - Notes for an oral presentation to the Select Committee on Tax Review, by the Chairperson of the Advisory Council, July 7, 2008.
Presentation tax review July 2008
Tax reform July 2008
Here's a conversation starter for your next barbecue party this summer: What should be the principles guiding tax reform - specifically the reform for which the provincial government is consulting us this month? Maybe it's not much of a starter. Maybe it's not the kind of thing that should be done hurriedly, in the summer. Maybe that's why it's being done in the summer. Maybe that's the message to send to the government: we know what you are doing this summer. Some of us gave a quick read of the provincial government's discussion paper on tax reform - admittedly with the hope that our summer plans could go ahead as usual. But a few things struck us:
-- From the column by Chairperson Ginette Petitpas-Taylor, Moncton Times & Transcript, July 3, 2008.
Listen to the presentation on "Sex Workers in the Maritimes - Listening, for a change" by the co-authors of a book on the topic, Prof. Gayle MacDonald (Sociology, St Thomas Univ.) and Prof. Leslie Ann Jeffrey (History & Politics, UNB Saint John). The session was taped at a Lunch & Learn on 26 June 2008 in Campbellton organized by the N.B. Advisory Council on the Status of Women.
The book is available for purchase through the publishers at UBC Press [http://www.ubcpress.ca/search/title_book.asp?BookID=4585] as well as at Westminster Books in Fredericton [http://www.westminsterbooks.com/] and online retailers.
Jails and prisons are currently the only institutions that cannot say 'our beds are full' or 'you don't fit within our mandate.' And so our prisons have become defacto asylums. ... Incarceration is obviously not the answer to mental health problems, for youth or for adults whose illness is often layered with experiences of sexual abuse, intimate partner violence, racial discrimination, addictions and poverty. Banishing these individuals to institutions where they find limited or no opportunities for treatment is a recipe for disaster.
-- Excerpts, column by Chairperson Ginette Petitpas-Taylor, Times & Transcript, 12 June, 2008.
When a group of Aboriginal women living in New Brunswick were asked what were some of the issues of concern to them as women, the topics included many that are in common with other New Brunswick women - jobs, violence, health, respect - but many spoke just as strongly about the need for policies to recognize the indigenous languages of New Brunswick, and for the First Nations to be allowed to determine who are their members. In other circumstances, we might have pointed out that we wanted to hear about issues of particular concern to women, and that just like non Aboriginal women are concerned with many issues other than "women's issues", we could appreciate they had other causes, but we wanted to hear about "women's issues". Fortunately we remembered we were there to listen.
-- Excerpts, column by Chairperson Ginette Petitpas-Taylor, Times & Transcript, 29 May, 2008.
Listen to the presentation by Gwen Bear, at a session on Elders in Aboriginal Communities - Understanding 101, held in Fredericton 22 May 2008. Gwen Bear is a respected Aboriginal Elder from New Brunswick who over the past 18 years has traveled to national and international events to share her knowledge, teaching Native Spirituality to both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students.
More than one unsuccessful candidate in the recent municipal elections in New Brunswick was heard saying that New Brunswick needs to limit spending by municipal candidates. ... The reasons behind spending limits at other levels of politics are the same good reasons why there should be limits at the municipal level. Otherwise, special interests, whether they are developers, industrialists, unions or conservationists, can invest to ensure their representative gets in. ... How is that a woman's issue? Women have less income, are less well connected and more rarely represent moneyed interests. But while that results in disproportionate effect on women and aggravates the problem of too few women in politics, the main reason to support spending limits is to protect democracy, no less.
-- Excerpts, column by Chairperson Ginette Petitpas-Taylor, Times & Transcript, 15 May, 2008.
The New Brunswick government has announced that the HPV vaccine will be administered to girls in grades 7 and 8 in the the 2008-09 school year, after which it will be administered to Grade 7 girls. A cervical cancer screening and prevention program will also be introduced.
-- Click here for more resources.
Listen to the presentation by Sharon McIvor at the Lunch & Learn "How the Indian Act still prefers male Indians and their descendants - and how Sharon McIvor is taking on the Indian Act" (6 May, 2008, Fredericton). Best known for her successful legal challenge to sexist provisions of Bill C-31 and the Indian Act governing determination of Indian status, B. C. lawyer and professor of Aboriginal Law Sharon McIvor is one of the most prominent voices in the fight for Aboriginal women's rights in Canada.
Listen to the presentation by Elder Imelda Perley, "As long as we have the language - Aboriginal Languages and Cultures, The Continuous Circle" that was given in Moncton on 30 April 2008. Imelda Perley is a Wolastoqew storyteller, teacher and translator who has devoted her life to connecting Maliseet people to their culture. She is Coordinator of the Wolastoq Language & Culture Centers (Tobique & St. Mary's First Nations), Professor, Language, Culture and Native Studies(UNB, STU., Univ. of Maine) and cultural advisor for community and governmental agencies.
Sharon McIvor of British Columbia is carrying a torch lit many years ago by Aboriginal women of Tobique- giant killers all. Early next month, Sharon will be in Tobique and will meet some of those women. Canada took notice that hot summer of 1979, when the women of Tobique organized to obtain Indian rights for Indian women. The weeklong walk by Tobique women and children from Oka to Ottawa attracted lots of attention.
-- From the column by Chairperson Ginette Petitpas-Taylor, Moncton Times & Transcript, 17 April 2008
Suggestions for action to get more women into government and to turn up the heat on women's issues. Compiled by the NB Avisory Council, April 2008
Listen to the presentation by Marilyn Noble, Research Team on Workplace Violence and Abuse, UNB Muriel McQueen Fergusson Centre for Family Violence Research. 60 minutes, Fredericton, September 6, 2007. Organized by the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women.
Listen to presentations delivered at a Lunch & Learn February 21, 2008 in Moncton, by Diane Matte, specialist in matters related to international human trafficking and Member of the Research Team on the Sexual Trafficking of Women in Québec; Mark Antony Krupa, social activist for the eradication of human trafficking and actor in the acclaimed 2005 Lifetime mini-series Human Trafficking; and Ginette Petitpas-Taylor, of the Codiac region RCMP Victim Services Representative and Chairperson,NB Advisory Council on the Status of Women. Co-sponsored by Univ. de Moncton's Women and Development Committee of the dept. of International Relations and the N.B. Advisory Council, and made possible through the Univ. de Moncton Project "Engagement des francophones du N.-B. a l'internationalisation" funded by Canadian International Development Agency. (45 minutes, in French and English)
Listen to the presentations at the Lunch & Learn in Moncton, 14 November, 2007 with Dieppe Councillor Brenda LeBlanc and Moncton Councillor Kathryn Barnes. In French and English. 80 minutes.
This session is one of a series being organized by the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women, in anticipation of the May 2008 municipal elections in N.B. What if, instead of fighting city hall, you joined it?
Listen to the 60-minute presentation on Experiences of Abused Rural Women in N.B. and P.E.I. - Firearms, Animal Abuse, Culture, by Drs. Deborah Doherty and Jennie Hornosty at a recent Fredericton Lunch and Learn sponsored by the N.B. Advisory Council on the Status of Women.
Despite the growing body of literature on family violence, there are few studies which deal specifically with family violence in a rural context. None have examined extensively the social and cultural context of firearms in rural homes and the impact this may have on women dealing with abuse.
-- Read the Summary by Dr. Deborah Doherty and Dr. Jennie Hornosty
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