Saskatchewan’s Minister for the Status of Women, and Prince Albert Northcote MLA Alana Ross, said women are doing amazing work in the province, and it’s important to honour those contributions on International Women’s Day.
Ross made the comments after hosting a reception at the Saskatchewan Legislature in Regina on Thursday. Ross said Saskatchewan is moving in the right direction, and women are playing a big part in that success.
“The amazing work that they do for our province, it helps us socially, (and) it helps us economically,” Ross said during a media scrum afterward. “Women do such important things. I look back to when I was a girl, you had limited choices as to what you were able to do as a woman, and I look around the room, and I see these women—these accomplished women—paving the way for young women of the future. That is so important because we have so much to give.”
More than 70 female leaders from the private, public, and non-profit sectors were at the Legislature to celebrate International Women’s’ Day, which is scheduled for March 8.
As part of the event, those leaders were introduced in the house, and attended a networking session after.
“Women are a key driver of Saskatchewan’s economy, and it is important to celebrate that success,” Ross said in a press release. “We also need to remember that leadership in our society goes beyond the workplace and to recognize women in all aspects of our lives.”
While Ross was excited about the province’s future, and the role women are playing in it, NDP Shadow Minister for the Status of Women, Jacqueline Roy, said it’s hard to celebrate the contributions made by women when there are so many issues that remain unaddressed.
“Women tell me things have gotten worse,” Roy wrote in an email to the Herald. “I think a lot of it has to do with our voice being completely absent from the table under Premier Moe. We’ve seen discourse around domestic violence stall. We’ve seen great difficulty in accessing healthcare. We see more poverty, and with one of the widest pay gaps between women and men in the country, unfortunately, women are disproportionately affected.
“I wish I could say things have improved, and there are small instances here and there, but sadly, I genuinely believe they have not.”
Roy wrote that the provincial government needs to “invest seriously in women’s health” by recruiting more family doctors and nurse practitioners, while also bringing in more gynecologists.
Roy added that she’s also concerned about the province’s high rates of domestic violence, which are double the national average. She wrote that the provincial government needs to declare domestic violence an epidemic.
On March 4, Ross was on hand as the provincial government announced $310,000 in one-time capital grants to 12 provincially funded safe transition houses could make repairs, upgrades, and essential improvements. Roy wrote that the government could be doing much more.
“Other jurisdictions have recognized this crisis by declaring it an epidemic,” she wrote. “This government must do the same and put real dollars and accountability measures in place when implementing its own recommendations from the Domestic Violence Death Review. They have not done enough to meet their very own recommendations.”
@kerr_jas • jason.kerr@paherald.sk.ca
