TO Budget
In the next few months, Toronto’s City Council will decide how to spend billions of dollars on Toronto’s infrastructure, services and community supports. Toronto’s budget is a major opportunity to promote gender equity by thinking about how spending and revenues impacts Toronto’s families – and especially women and girls.Gender equity acknowledges and analyses the underlying root causes that different groups of people face based on their social, cultural and economic identities and seeks to redress these through allocation of public resources.
What is Gender Equity
Gender equity ensures the development of programs, policies and budgets that are fair and meet the needs of both women and men. A Gender Equity Lens is a systematic framework for asking questions and analysing the impact of the City’s policies, services and practices on different communities of women and girls. When cities are designed and run using a Gender Equity Lens; policies, programs, and decision-making address systemic gender inequality and discrimination. Gender Equity leads to Gender Equality.
How does the City of Toronto touch women’s lives?
Women use the city differently than men because of their employment, family and child rearing roles, poverty, interests and safety concerns are different than men’s. Women face concerns like fear of harassment or violence, travelling with strollers, child and elder care responsibilities, housing and public space use. In Toronto women face: poverty, violence, poor diets, homelessness, slum landlords, underemployment, precarious work, lack of affordable childcare and restrictions of movements due to unsafe and unaffordable TTC fares. These problems are intensified for Indigenous women, racialized women, women living disabilities and transwomen
Why is Gender Equity in Municipal Policy so important
More than 50% of Toronto’s population identify as women.
About the Campaign
In the City of Toronto, the 2017 Budget is leaving women, girls and families behind. You can help create a more equitable Toronto.
The 2017 budget makes significant investment in key strategic priorities of the City, which include: transit and transportation, public safety, and poverty reduction. The City of Toronto has made commitments to improving gender equity and equality and these priorities need to be reflected in the development of the City’s budget.
The Mayor’s hallmark has been to bring the city to the 21st century – how can we do that when a significant portion of the residents in Toronto are left behind?
On July 12, 2016, Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam successfully moved the following motion that was passed by City Council:
Join us:
Tuesday January 10, 2017 at 9:30 a.m.
1. Join us at City Hall for the Budget Committee meeting. Bring your family!
2. Make a deputation (Register here or email buc@toronto.ca.
3. #SnapTheBudget and share your budget story
4. Call your Councillor and Mayor Tory to tell them you want to see gender equity in the 2017 Budget.
5. Spread the word about #SnapTheBudget #GenderEquityTO #TObudget
WE MUST DESIGN AN EQUITABLE CITY BUDGET THAT ALLOWS EVERYONE TO THRIVE
#SnapTheBudget #GenderEquityTO #TOBudget
#SnapTheBudget
Take a picture of where the City of Toronto budget is failing women and families and share it on twitter using the hashtag #SnapTheBudget. Together we can tell City Council what an equitable budget can look like.