Conference Program
Imagining Public Policy to Meet Women's Economic Security Needs

Friday, October 14, 2005

Plenary I - Imagining Progressive Social Welfare Policy
Chair: Seth Klein - Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA)

• Jane Jenson ( Université de Montréal )
• Shelagh Day (Poverty & Human Rights Project)
• Patsy George (Community advocate and activist)

Session A

• Roundtable A: Challenging the Income Security/Labour Market Nexus for Women
  Chair: Jane Pulkingham - Simon Fraser University, Sociology & Anthropology

•  Martha MacDonald (St. Mary's University)
•  Wendy McKeen (Dalhousie University) – The Children's Agenda and the Shifting Philosophy of Social Policy in Canada: Where do we go from here?
•  Randy Albelda (University of Massachusetts-Boston)
•  Stella Lord (Nova Scotia policy analyst) – Low Income Single Mothers and Compulsory Employment
• Ernie Lightman (University of Toronto, Social Work) – Challenging the Assumptions of the Economic Market

•  Panel A1: Translating Dreams into Policy: Re-Imagining Governance
Chair: Marcy Cohen - Hospital Employees Union

•  Barbara Cameron (York University)
•  Shelagh Day (Poverty & Human Rights Project)
•  Tammy Findlay (York University)
•  Kim McIntyre (York University)

•  Panel A2: Women of an (un)certain age: Shaping older women's economic future - Chair: Laurell Ritchie – Canadian Auto Workers Union

•  Charmaine Spencer (Simon Fraser University, Gerontology Research Centre)
•  Elsie Dean (Women Elders in Action)
• Lillian Zimmerman (Simon Fraser University, Gerontology Research Centre)

•  Panel A3: Immigrant Women's Economic Security
Chair: Leah Vosko – York University, Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies

•  Jill Hanley (Universite Libre de Bruxelles) – Economic Security for Women with Precarious Immigration Status: Enforcing Labour Rights for Everyone (co-authored by Eric Shragge, Concordia University)
•  Dan Zuberi (UBC – HELP) – The Thorn Net: How Interactions of Social Safety Net Gaps Harm Hotel Room Attendants in Seattle and Vancouver
•  Fiona MacPhail (University of Northern British Columbia) – Imagining Public Policy: What do women casual workers want? (co-authored by Paul Bowles, University of Northern British Columbia)

•  Panel A4: Meeting Women's Needs as Health Care Clients and Providers
Chair: Patricia Wejr – British Columbia Nurses' Union

•  Melody Kelly (Memorial University) – Supporting Women's Economic Security Needs Through A Universal Home Care Policy
•  Arlene Tigar McLaren (Simon Fraser University) - Where's the Care? Re-conceptualizing the boundaries of public and private in community-based home support services (co-authored by Tracey Lou Black, BC Health Coalition, Darlene Thorburn, BCGEU, and Ann Chamber, BCGEU)
•  Laura Zilney (Canadian Federation of University Women) – Moving Beyond the Policy Debate: How Process Improvements Can Dramatically Impact Service Delivery in the Health Care System

Session B

•  Roundtable B: Community-based Health Care Models For the Economic Security of Women - Chair: Jan Taylor – BC Co-operative Association

•  Michelle Kelly (Care Connection Co-op)/Laura Rath (Care Connection Co-op)
•  Sheila Rowswell (Mid-Main Health Clinic and Hospital Employees' Union)
• Patrick LaPointe & Louise McKinney (Saskatoon Community Clinic)
• Marcy Cohen (Hospital Employees' Union)

•  Panel B1: Livable or Basic Income: A New Approach to Economic Security
Chair: Margot Young – The University of British Columbia, Law

•  Jim Mulvale (University of Regina)
•  Cindy L'Hirondelle (Victoria Status of Women Action Group)
•  Diane Delaney (Provincial Association for Transition Houses and Services of Saskatchewan)
• Rhonda Breitkreuez (University of Alberta)/Deanna Williamson (University of Alberta) - Enhancing social policy in Canada: The Gortex solution

•  Panel B2: Imagining Women, Provisioning and Community in a Provident State
Chair: Barbara Cameron - York University, Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies

•  Marge Reitsma-Street (University of Victoria) – All the work women do: Imagining household and collective provisioning
•  Stepahnie Baker Collins (York University) – The complex web of household provisioning: Stories of food coop members
•  Elaine Porter (Laurentian University) – Collective provisioning: Contributions of community resource centres
•  Sheila Neysmith (University of Toronto) – Provisioning policies of a provident state

•  Panel B3: Unemployment Insurance (EI), Old Age Benefits & Retirement Issues - Chair: Joyce Jones – BC Seniors Network

•  Laurell Ritchie (Canadian Auto Workers Union): Can We Make Unemployment Insurance Work Better for Women?
•  Margaret Manery (Independent Researcher from BC): Abolishing Mandatory Retirement: What are the Safeguards for Women?
•  Madonna Harrington Meyer & Kristenne Robison (Syracuse University): Linking Old Age Benefits to Marital Status vs. a Minimum Benefit

•  Panel B4: Including Women in Policy/Budget Making
Chair: Arlene Tigar McLaren – Simon Fraser University, Sociology and Anthropology

•  Jennifer deGroot (UN Platform for Action Committee Manitoba) – Gender Budgets as a tool for women's economic security
•  Olena Hankivsky (Simon Fraser University) – Gender Mainstreaming in Neoliberal Times: The Potential of “Deep Evaluation”

Plenary II - Imagining Strong Employment Policy
Chair: Pat Armstrong - York University, Department of Sociology and Department of Women's Studies

• Leah Vosko (York University)
• Marcy Cohen (Hospital Employees' Union)
• Cecilia Diocson (Philippine Women's Centre)
  

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Plenary III – Imagining Social Supports that Work
Chair: Jane Pulkingham – Simon Fraser University, Sociology & Anthropology

• Marta Szebehely (Stockholm University)
• Rita Chudnovsky (BC Coalition of Child Care Advocates)
• Fay Blaney (Aboriginal Women's Action Network - AWAN)

Session C

•  Roundtable C: Securing Women's Economic Future: Redressing the Devaluation of Precarious Jobs in Policy & Practice
Chair: Fiona MacPhail - University of Northern British Columbia, Department of Economics

•  Leah Vosko (York University) - 'Precarious Employment': Towards an Improved Understanding of Labour Market Insecurity in Canada
•  Nancy Zukewich (Statistics Canada): A View from within Statistics Canada
•  Stephanie Bernstein (University of Quebec at Montreal)– Precarious Employment and the Law's Flaw: Securing Effective Protection for Workers
•  Katherine Lippel (University of Quebec at Montreal) -Workers' Compensation Statistics: How Costs of Injury to Women Workers are Under-Estimated and Potential Solutions
•  Pat Armstrong (York University) - Where do we go from here?

•  Panel C1: Community-Based Research Processes: Addressing the Needs of Multiple Constituencies - Chair: Olena Hankivsky – Simon Fraser University, Political Science & Women's Studies

•  Catherine M. Scott (University of Calgary) - Women and Fair Income: Creating Women Centred Policy Alternatives through Community-Based Research (co-authored by W.E. Thurston)
•  Michelle Murdoch (Memorial University of Newfoundland) - Reimagining Disabilities through Self-Determine Voices
•  Laura Dreuth Zeman (Southern Illinois University) - Community Based Research Using Mother's Narratives from an Internet Support Community

•  Panel C2: Single Mothers on Social Assistance: Moving Towards Solutions
Chair: Jewelles Smith – Simon Fraser University, Women's Studies Student

•  Amber Gazso (University of Alberta) – Listening to Low-Income Parents' Experiences of Work/Family Conflict to Meet their Needs in Future Social Assistance Policy Restructuring
•  Margot Young (The University of British Columbia) – Single Mothers on Welfare: Catch 22
•  Corrine Elizabeth Skarstedt (Carleton University) – Forging Fundamental Solutions: (Un)spinning Canada's Socio-Economic (In)security
•  Lea Caragata (Wilfred Laurier University)/ Joe Manion (Toronto Social Services) – Lone Mothers: Policy Responses to Build Social Inclusion

•  Panel C3: Caring Work: Voluntary or Controlled?
Chair: Martha MacDonald – St. Mary's University, Economic

•  Paul Kershaw (UBC – HELP) – Care fair : feminist policy reform served ‘neoliberal style'
•  Susan Braedley (York University) – ‘Getting Guys to Care': Can Social Policies that Encourage Men's Participation in Care Work Positively Impact on Women's Economic Security?
•  Amanda J Felkey (Cornell University) – Will You Covenant Marry Me? A Look at a New Type of Marriage

•  Panel C4: Working with Disabilities
Chair: Penny Gurstein – The University of British Columbia, School of Community & Regional Planning

•  John Vellacott (The University of British Columbia) – For Better or Worse? National Employment Policy Approaches and Women with Disabilities
•  Marina Morrow (The University of British Columbia) – Making Work: Income Security for Women with Mental Illness
• Christine Gordon (BC Coalition of People with Disabilities) - Breaking Down the Barriers to Employment for People with Disabilities
• Kathleen Shiels (Western Society for Children) - Beyond Bucks

Session D

•  Roundtable D: Flexibility vs Entitlement to Support: Pathways to the Future
Chair: Marge Reitsma-Street – University of Victoria

•  Penny Gurstein / Silvia Vilches (The University of British Columbia, School of Community and Regional Planning) – Pathways to the Future: Implications of the Income Assistance Project
•  Sylvia Fuller (The University of British Columbia, Anthropology/Sociology)
•  Paul Kershaw (The University of British Columbia, Human Early Learning Project)
•  Jane Pulkingham (Simon Fraser University, Sociology/Anthropology)
•  Margo Young (The University of British Columbia, Law)

•  Panel D1: Economic Security for Women in the Sex Trade
Chair: Marina Morrow – Simon Fraser University

•  Leslie Ann Jeffrey (University of New Brunswick) – It's the Money, Honey: Income Security and Sex Work
•  Emily van der Meulen (York University) – Towards more Egalitarian Policies on Prostitution: What Canada Can Learn from the International Community
•  Lee Lakeman - Vancouver Rape Relief

•  Panel D2: Policies for Low Income Women
Chair: Ernie Lightman – University of Toronto, Social Work

•  Shauna Butterwick (The University of British Columbia) – Low Income Single Mothers & Access to Post-Secondary Education
•  Jane Henrici (University of Memphis) – Learning to be Poor: Job Training and Women in the US
•  Wendy McKeen (Dalhousie University) - The Children's Agenda and the Shifting Philosophy of Social Policy in Canada: Where do we go from here?

•  Panel D3: Community Voices in Policy Making
Chair: Whitney Borowko – Simon Fraser University, Women's Studies Student

•  Kay Willson (Prairie Women's Health Centre of Excellence) – We've Found our Voices. Now Who's Listening?
•  Lise Martin & Dr. Jo-Anne Lee (Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women: CRIAW) – Working to Integrate Marginalized Women's Voices into Social Policy and Debates
•  Chrystal Ocean (Wellbeing thru Inclusion Socially and Economically – WISE) – Recommendations from Women in Poverty: Community Based Solutions

•  Panel: D4: Labour from the Bottom Up
Chair: Mary Rowles – BCGEU

•  Stephen McBride (Simon Fraser University) / Kathy McNutt (Student – Simon Fraser University) – Women's Economic Security and Experiences of Labour Market Alienation
•  Andrew Jackson (Canadian Labour Congress) –Work with Welfare?
• Marcy Cohen (Hospital Employees' Union) – Organizing privatized health workers:  Learning from the BC and UK Experiences

Plenary IV - Strategies for Change: Looking for a Different Future
Chair: Marjorie Griffen Cohen - SFU, Women's Studies & ESP Project

• Hilary Wainwright