SUBJECT: Do you feel invisible to the City’s Governance?

 

Dear Councillor,

 

In a city with such diversity, where a majority of residents are women (53%), it is vital that the City of Toronto take women’s and girls’ realities into account when planning the city’s vision and future.

 

However, a scan of City of Toronto documents shows very little mention of women’s lived experiences within the City.

 

While there are several ways to ensure the City policies reflect women’s experiences, the recent history of the City’s marginalizing women’s voices requires that the city move boldly to establish of a Toronto Women’s Equalities Office in order to create an important institutional mechanism to ensure that diverse women’s voices are heard at the City.

 

By establishing a Toronto Women’s Equalities Office, the City of Toronto can demonstrate that it is committed to our women of ages. I fully support and endorse the Toronto Women’s City Alliance (TWCA)’s calls to establish a Toronto Women’s Equalities Office.

 

  • We want an office that helps to promote women’s involvement and participation in the consultative public policy processes that happen on issues that affect our lives like transportation, childcare, affordable housing, planning, safety and more.

  • We want an office that has research/policy capacity to apply a gender-based analysis to the city’s policies.

  • We want an office that has the power to do audits of the city’s activities to identify how we can continue to progress.

  • We want an office that provides the support to enable more women to run, and to be elected to the city council.

  • We want a city staff that looks like our city, we want a City council that looks like our city.

 

Once again, I am calling for your support and immediate action to establish a Toronto Women’s Equalities Office.

 

Sincerely,

[your name here]