Crossroads of Crisis: COVID, Care, and Gender-Based Violence in Canada
Content warning: Please be aware that in this episode, we will be discussing topics related to gender-based violence, which might be sensitive or triggering for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised.
In today’s episode, we delve deep into the critical issues surrounding gender equality in Canada, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We explore the major challenges and developments in gender equality, paying special attention to the disturbing rise in gender-based violence during this period and how it varies across different regions in the country. Our conversation then extends to examining areas where Canada shows promising signs of gender equality, along with an in-depth look at the care economy. We discuss Canada's response to the care economy during and after the pandemic, comparing it with global best practices.
Guests:
Katherine Scott serves as the director for the CCPA's gender equality and public policy work. She has worked in the community sector as a researcher, writer and advocate over the past 20 years, writing on a range of issues from social policy, to inequality, to funding for nonprofits. She is passionate about research that speaks to the aspirations of communities and supports collective action for change. She has served as Vice President of Research at the Canadian Council on Social Development for several years and, more recently, produced research and analysis for organizations such as Prosper Canada, Volunteer Canada, Capacity Canada, Pathways to Education Canada, and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Katherine lives in Ottawa with her family. She holds degrees in political science from Queen’s University and York University.
Ito Peng is the Canada Research Chair in Global Social Policy and the Director of the Centre for Global Social Policy at the Department of Sociology, and the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. She is a leading researcher and expert in global social policy and political economy, specializing in the care economy, and family, gender, migration, and climate change policies, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She currently leads two international projects: the first is Care Economies in Context: towards sustainable social and economic development, a global partnership research project that investigates care infrastructures in 9 countries in 5 global regions and uses that data to develop gender-sensitive macroeconomic models of care economies in these countries. The second project she leads is Care and Climate Change Policies project aimed to compile a package of policy briefs on different dimensions of care and climate change. She is also a distinguished fellow of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and currently serves as a thought leader for the foundation's Women’s Business Missions to Asia Pacific initiative. She was a co-lead for the Room 5 for the Rockefeller Foundation-Brookings Institute’s 17-Rooms Global Flagship project (2021-2023).
Producers:
Tasha Romeyn, Jannatul Auddri
