MOTION ON NOTICE

At the Council meeting of November 5, 2002, Councillor Bass submitted the following Notice of Motion which was recognized by the Chair.

1. Call for a report on City of Vancouver support for women's advocacy groups

WHEREAS, women's advocacy centres offer the women of a given community an opportunity to organize to prevent violence against women and children, to promote women's health, to address racism, and to improve the status of women;

AND Whereas, women's advocacy centres have evolved from the grassroots and allow women to organize on a model of self-help and thus enable a broad range of women to understand and participate in community life across the potential boundaries of race, class and culture;

AND WHEREAS, women's organizations are uniquely responsive to women's needs and cannot be duplicated by government-created, non-gender-specific programs and institutions;

AND WHEREAS, there are approximately a quarter million women in the city of Vancouver who will benefit directly or indirectly from women's centres because the very existence of these centres provides evidence to women that the community supports women's organizing and self-help initiatives;

AND WHEREAS, the provincial government has reduced already inadequate welfare rates and instituted measures which discourage and disqualify potential welfare applicants, thus creating conditions that make it impossible for many women to escape abusive husbands, fathers and employers;

AND WHEREAS, the provincial government's plans to cut legal aid by 40% over the next three years will result in reduced legal protection for battered women and for women facing charges for poverty-related crimes;

AND WHEREAS, the provincial government announced in January 17, 2002, that it would be cutting 100% of core funding (1.7 million dollars) for women's centres in British Columbia and that by April, 2004, 37 women's centres across BC will lose all their provincial core funding; 7

AND WHEREAS, the centres that survive the cuts can be expected to provide support to those women who cannot find services elsewhere;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT,

· Vancouver City Council ask for a report on the implications of cuts in provincial government funding for the functioning of women's advocacy groups in Vancouver, and

· Alternatives for City of Vancouver support to the following groups be described: the Aboriginal Women's Action Network, the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre, the Philippine Women Centre of BC, the South Asian Women Centre, Vancouver Rape Relief and the Women's Shelter, the Vancouver Status of Women, the Vancouver Women s Health Collective, and Women Against Violence Against Women.

(c) 1998 City of Vancouver