NB Women's News – January 4, 2010

NB Women's News – January 4, 2010

- A service of the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women
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Best wishes in the new year - Nopal petakiyin Wolitahasuwakon Nipayimiyamk naka Pilikotok - Nos meilleurs voeux en 2010 - Oltasi Ag Oleieen ola Noeleoimg

CHILDREN, LOVE THEM EVERY ONE
A few decades ago, we changed our policies, our attitude and our language to stop calling certain children “illegitimate”. It remains incredible that, until so recently, we could treat children differently based on their parents’ status. There remain a few instances where children are treated differently based on their parents’ situation, according to arguments put forth recently.

Over 13,000 families with children in the province include a common-law couple. The breakdown of their parents’ relationship affects the children of unmarried parents as much as it does the children of married parents. Law professor Robert Leckey wrote recently that, “most provinces restrict their matrimonial-property laws to married couples… The protections of marriage - chief among them the possibility of one spouse securing exclusive possession of the matrimonial home - indirectly benefit the children of married parents.” This may result in disadvantages for children whose parents are not married. Several provinces now provide the option for partners who are not married to register their union for this protection. Also, by ending a common-law relationship, a person loses their claim, for instance, to a survivor’s pension under CPP. For the sake of children, we need to put some order in these laws that manage unions…
In other instances, it can be children of the formerly married that are disadvantaged. This year, as a result of budget cuts, the New Brunswick Legal Aid Services Commission decided to no longer provide services to people requiring anything under the Divorce Act, even relating to support, custody, access and other issues. Evidently this creates a distinction between families and between children. Children of divorce will not be treated the same as children of parents who never married or never divorced and some will not benefit from the adjustments that are needed to support, custody or access orders.

- From a column by Chairperson Elsie Hambrook, 24 Dec. 2009. http://76.12.152.213/media/acsw/files/Columns/Christmas%20eve-%20children%20Dec%2024.pdf

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NOTICE, RESOURCES, EVENTS

Read past editions of NB Women’s News www.acswcccf.nb.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=948&Itemid=60&lang=en
Or search them using the search box on www.acswcccf.nb.ca

St-Valentine’s Day is National Day of Action - Girls Action Foundation invites female youth to create projects that raise awareness about issues affecting them. Subsidies to network members. Register by 10 Jan 2010: www.girlsactionfoundation.ca ; adeline@girlsactionfoundation.ca

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PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES IN N.B. HOUSEHOLDS, 2006
65,040 females; 57,500 males (total, 122,540)
0 -4 yrs: 170 females; 380 males
5 -14 yrs: 1,420 females; 2,710 males
15 -24 yrs: 2,500 females; 2,500 males
25 -44 yrs: 10,400 females; 8,400 males
45 -64 yrs: 24,200 females; 23,000 males
65 -74 yrs: 10,600 females; 10,300 males
75+ yrs: 15,700 females; 10,300 males.

- 2006 Participation & Activity Limitation Survey: Disability in Canada, StatsCan.

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CO-AUTHOR OF LEGAL AID REPORT SAYS SYSTEM IN CHAOS

"The family court system (in N.B.) is in chaos. It has been brought to screeching halt," says Sheila Cameron, a Moncton family lawyer & co-author of the province's last report on legal aid. She says courtrooms are clogged with cases once resolved through mediation. "They fired all the mediators and now those cases that were once settled out of court are clogging the system." In Moncton alone, nearly a dozen cases were mediated each week before the cuts. "Now there are even cases where the judge steps down from the bench and becomes a mediator. So we've got our most expensive person in the entire legal system sitting down and mediating what could have been worked out 6 months earlier.” Cameron said courtroom delays are rampant because people who don't qualify for legal aid and can't afford to retain the services of a lawyer often choose to represent themselves, which can slow down the court process. "Private family lawyers in New Brunswick charge between $200-$300/hr. Most cases don't see the light of the courtroom for less than $5,000. Mothers with children who are looking for child support can't afford that." Cameron said the wait for legal aid is currently 6 months. This means parents whose children have been taken into care by the government through the child protection system face lengthy delays.

Cameron was part of the Access to Family Justice Task Force… which made 50 recommendations aimed at relieving the pressures on family court … Cameron says she is shocked to witness legal aid "going backwards". "It's completely baffling to watch the department and court system get slashed and burned.”

- Court 'in chaos', Brett Bundale, Telegraph-Journal, 29 Dec 2009.

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NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR MARKET BASKET MEASURE

The Government of Nfld has developed the Nfld & Lab. Market Basket Measure of Low Income - the first of its kind in Canada... It’s specific to the realities of the province, compares the incomes of families to the cost of a basket of goods & services necessary to live a socially inclusive life, using tax-filer data. This allows for the reporting of low-income levels in communities and groups, including lone parents, etc. “Part of what's interesting is that they've got gender analysis embedded in the NLMBM data being developed - not a claim that can be made about any of the other poverty measures."

The Nfld poverty plan monitors 15 indicators to assess the extent of poverty (gender differences for the indicators are also being tracked).
- www.hrle.gov.nl.ca/hrle/publications/poverty/PRSProgessReport.pdf

MEASURING POVERTY HAS NEVER BEEN SIMPLE…
The accepted national gauge of poverty is Statscan’s Low Income Cut-Off. But LICO is cumbersome to explain, it ignores absolute needs, and Statscan discourages its use as a poverty indicator… Ontario has unveiled the Ontario Deprivation Index, calculated by 2 social-policy groups & based on a similar list in Ireland: 10 items necessary to an acceptable Canadian standard of living (incl. fresh fruit & vegetables daily, a home free from cockroaches, access to transportation and ability to buy small gifts for family members once a year). If a household cannot afford at least 2 entries, they are considered poor. Ireland goes further and combines it with a relative income measure for a comprehensive view of poverty. Those who cannot afford at least two items on the Irish deprivation list and fall below 60% of median income are considered in consistent poverty.

- Excerpts, Defining necessities, Editorial, Globe & Mail, 4 Dec 2009. See also: www.news.ontario.ca/mcys/en/2009/12/ontario-deprivation-index.html

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N.B. TAX-CUT PLAN BENEFITS WEALTHIEST IN 2010

New Brunswick's high-income groups have the most to gain in Year 2 of the 4-yr provincial income tax reduction plan, which begins Jan. 1… A single person earning $25,000 will save $174 (in 2010); someone earning $500,000 will save $12,421. "It makes us a very attractive jurisdiction for entrepreneurs and investors," said Finance Minister Greg Byrne. Overall tax cuts will total $143.5 million in 2009-10, increasing to $380.2 million in 2012-13.

- N.B. tax-cut, 30 Dec 2009, CBC News

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HISTORY IS AS YOU SEE IT

Women’s history challenges us to think differently about what we consider historically important... Important turning points in history… have typically been defined by military or political events: pre- or post-Confederation, World War 2. What if historians highlighted those events which altered the lives of women? The introduction of the birth control pill, the right of women to own property... Thinking this way reminds us that the ways in which we mark time are always artificial.

The power differentials between women sometimes outweigh the ties that bind women together… Can we argue that winning federal suffrage in 1918 was a crucial turning point for all women when aboriginal women waited for that same right to be fully extended (to aboriginals) until 1960…
Traditional histories of work often omitted women because women’s domestic labour - housework and caregiving - was unpaid and not understood as work… While formal politics excluded women, women have had a long history of political activism. From Jewish housewives in Toronto in the 30s who boycotted grocers for selling over-priced milk and meat, to rural women in 19th-century PEI who fought off landlords with pitchforks and occasionally guns, women have long protested injustice, argued with authorities, or fought to feed their families. Women’s historians who remind us that the everyday event is of cultural value. Mothering, domestic life, childbirth rituals, and friendships are worthy of study and historical reflection... Those who claim that it is natural for women to “stay at home” and men to go to work conveniently ignore the long-standing labour of poor, working class women in the labour force …

- Excerpts, The continuing importance of women’s history, Lara Campbell, Simon Fraser Univ. http://fwix.com/share/62_782ceb50a3

*******NB Women’s News *******
AS THEY SAY

Life is like giving a concert on the violin while learning to play the instrument.

- British author Samuel Butler.

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