| VOLUME 28, NUMBER 30 | WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22, 1998 | ISSN 1199-5246 |
PEN PALS: (left to right) President Lorna Marsden, Health Minister Allan Rock and Michael Stevenson, vice-president (Academic Affairs).
CONSEQUENCES: Projects and workshops will examine consequences of health reform, Dr. Georgina Feldberg says.
Federal Minister of Health Allan Rock commended "the energetic academic leadership" of Dr. Georgina Feldberg, academic coordinator of the National Network on Environments and Women's Health (NNEWH), a Centre of Excellence for Women's Health at York, when he visited the University on April 9.
The minister was at York to launch 13 research projects as part of the NNEWH's national initiative to study the impacts of health reform on Canadian women. The projects are funded in part by a contribution of $717,610 from the federal government.
"This centre is truly a national resource," Rock said. He commended the NNEWH's focus on social determinants and the role they play in women's health and said the government would rely heavily on the centre's work as it developed programs.
"Home and community care results from the shift of focus from institutions to the community," said the minister. "The result is an informal de-insurance of people and the offloading of responsibility onto families and, especially, women. Women have been conscripted to take up the slack.
"The work going on here is terribly important," Rock said. "Women's missing voices must be heard."
Dr. Feldberg thanked the minister and Health Canada for funding the Women's Health Program. The program has made "three distinct and important contributions to women's health," she said.
"It has moved discussion beyond purely medical factors and matters to include the social determinants that international opinion indicates are key. It stresses the importance of research grounded in women's experiences and conducted in partnership with diverse communities of women. It creates room for the translation of research into policy."
Health reform comprises a variety of changes, Feldberg said. "These include the restructuring of hospitals and other forms of healthcare delivery." They also include changes in the regulation and location of services such as changes to the drug-approval process and the shifting of caregiving into the home, she said.
"Many of these changes affect women in significant ways, but their impact is as yet poorly understood.
"We know from the Health Monitor survey conducted during the summer of 1997 that Canadian women are significantly more concerned about homecare than men, and they expect to use it more often. Yet we know little about the ways in which the move to homecare affects paid hospital and community healthcare workers (a majority of whom are women), or the lives, economic security and spending power of unpaid workers, the majority of whom are also women. We have no means for measuring the social, political and economic costs to women of this policy shift."
A series of coordinated projects and workshops led by NNEWH "will give us a better understanding of the consequences health reform has for all Canadian girls and women," Feldberg said. She announced that $230,593 had been committed to the 13 research projects.
"The projects include studies of homecare, longterm care workplace restructuring, pharmaceutical and biotechnologies regulation, and complementary care. Several of these projects have also been granted significant matching funds from other granting councils, such as SSHRC," she said.
"Six of our newly-funded projects explore the effects of changes in service organization and delivery on women in a range of provinces, including B.C., Manitoba, Ontario and Newfoundland. They examine the concerns of varied communities of women among these, First Nations, francophone and elderly women.
"Another set of projects examines the introduction and regulation of new drugs and biotechnologies," she said.
"Three further projects examine the impacts of recent developments in genetic testing and technologies." A third is on alternative and complementary care.
The national network is committed to exploring the ways in which the Centres of Excellence Program can build upon such individual research projects and integrate them into a national assessment, Feldberg noted.
The NNEWH will help to develop a national map of health reform and its local implications for women and help to identify provincial changes and monitor their significance to women, she said.
The network also is proposing a series of workshops, planned for the fall of 1998, that will increase the prominence and visibility of women's experiences in health research and policy. "Much has been made of the need to include women in clinical trials of the need to understand women's physiologic responses to pharmaceuticals," Feldberg said. "Acknowledgement and exploration of gender-specific impacts of health, social and economic policy are equally crucial to women's health and well-being.
"Hence, workshops will be designed to ensure that the question, 'What about women?' is always asked," she said.
Michael Stevenson, the University's vice-president (Academic Affairs) began the launch event by outlining the host of programs at York dedicated to "the social science of medicine," including those concerned with public administration and management of healthcare services. He identified a number of programs based at Atkinson College, including the BSc program in nursing shared with two community colleges, the special program in health administration, and a variety of courses within the School of Social Work that focus on health-related matters.
The vice-president also pointed to the program in kinesiology and health science offered jointly by the Faculties of Pure and Applied Science and the Faculty of Arts, and additional programs administered by the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of Environmental Studies, the School of Physical Education and the Schulich School of Business, all of which have a significant healthcare focus.
Professor Kent McNeil
There is "a glaring contradiction" in last December's landmark judgment by the Supreme Court of Canada about Aboriginal land rights, Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, York Professor Kent McNeil is convinced.
The decision, written by Chief Justice Antonio Lamer, states that Aboriginal communities have "a right to the land itself" and to a full range of uses, including mining, logging and oil recovery, even if these were not Aboriginal land uses in the past. At the same time, the decision gives provincial governments the right to infringe upon the uses of Aboriginal lands for reasons of economic and regional fairness, notably when resource development is at issue.
Prof. McNeil addressed the matter during the course of his Robarts Lecture, entitled Defining Aboriginal Title in the '90s: Has the Supreme Court Finally Got It Right?, delivered recently before a full house in the Senate Chamber at York.
"My answer to the question is an equivocal, lawyer's answer: yes and no," McNeil stated.
"The judgment is basically correct the use of land is not restricted to historical uses. But with respect to the issue of infringement of Aboriginal title, I think the Supreme Court got it completely wrong," said McNeil, a noted expert on the rights of Aboriginals in Canada, Australia and the United States, and a professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School.
Calling Delgamuukw v. British Columbia "a landmark decision," he said that "it helps to level the playing field" by providing Aboriginal communities with substantial legal rights that had not been theirs before. "For the first time, we have a legal definition of what Aboriginal title means."
McNeil did quarrel, however, with the limitation that the court imposed on the Aboriginal community's use of the land. Stating that there must be a continuity of historical uses and current uses, the court held that the Aboriginal community's special relationship with the land must continue into the future. Present uses that would preclude past uses such as strip-mining on a traditional hunting ground are restricted.
The court's judgment that Aboriginal land cannot be used in ways that would destroy its use for traditional purposes "concerns me," said McNeil, "because it suggests that Aboriginal persons may be prisoners of the past.
"What if the Aboriginal community's practices have changed?" he asked. "Are they still restricted? I would say no. More disturbingly, isn't it paternalistic if the Aboriginal community does not want [to continue traditional practices]?"
The nature of the Aboriginal community's connection with the land "must be allowed to change over time," he said. "Canadian courts must not sit in judgment of social change."
Though the court "consciously avoided ruling on the Aboriginal claim to self-government," McNeil pointed to self-government as "a way out of this dilemma."
He noted that the court had acknowledged the Aboriginal community's traditional legal systems, forms of government and internal authority. "Aboriginal land is held communally. Decisions about that land are also made communally. Community decision-making requires a structure ...in short, a form of self-government," he said.
In deciding that provincial governments have the right to infringe upon uses of Aboriginal lands, "I think the Supreme Court got it completely wrong," said McNeil.
The court acknowledged that the Aboriginal community has an "exclusive right" (the right to exclude others). It also recognized that Aboriginal land title, like other Aboriginal rights, is protected by the Constitution, though this protection is not absolute. "It can be infringed upon by federal legislation, which must be compelling and substantial," McNeil explained.
"Since when can Constitutional rights be overridden for the economic interests of citizens who do not have the same Constitutional rights?" McNeil asked. "It astounded me when Lemaire stated that, in his opinion, 'the settlement of foreign populations [for agriculture] can justify abrogation of end titles.' In other words, replacing Aboriginals who do not farm by non-Aboriginals who do is justifiable. To me, this sounds like agriculturalists are superior to hunter-gatherers and so can take their land," he said.
By arguing in favour of government-authorized intrusion on Aboriginal land to serve economic ends, "Lemaire seems to subscribe to the view that what is good for MacMillan Bloedel is good for Canada," McNeil said.
The decision makes Aboriginal lands more vulnerable than private property, which is protected from expropriation except for public purposes, and then only if government has statutory authority. "This aspect of the decision is simply perverse," said McNeil.
The Chief Justice suggested that provinces have always infringed upon Aboriginal lands, but how can that be, given that the lands are under exclusively federal jurisdiction?, McNeil inquired. "It really appears to be the case of Lemair's right hand having forgotten what his left hand had done.
"There is a glaring contradiction in the judgment."
CAPTIVATING: Proceeds from one-woman show by Nia Vardalos will help support sister's research.
"A delightful hour of comedy and fun" is how one Los Angeles reviewer described My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a one-woman show by Second City alumnus Nia Vardalos. "Vardalos is a captivating storyteller who is able to relate the often hilarious absurdities heaped upon her by suffocatingly overprotective parents, while tangibly communicating the exuberant love and warmth that always surrounded her," a second reviewer wrote.
Vardalos is bringing My Big Fat Greek Wedding to Toronto for four days (six performances) as a benefit for her sister, York University student Marianne Vardalos, and her research in Race and Identity.
The production runs Thursday through Sunday, May 7-10 at the Tim Sims Playhouse, 56 Blue Jays Way. Showtime is 8:30 p.m. with additional performances at 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday, May 8 and 9.
For tickets, call the Second City box office, (416) 343-0011.
York University and Sheridan College have entered into a partnership that both institutions expect will result in the enhancement of the quality of care and education of young children.
Sheridan's Trafalgar Road Campus has become the newest site for York's one-year Consecutive Bachelor of Education Program.
Approximately 80 York students have been attending classes at Sheridan as part of their Bachelor of Education degree leading to provincial teacher certification. The students also have been completing practice placements in schools in the Halton and Peel regions.
CELEBRATE DIVERSITY: The feminist movement should broaden its perspective and recognize diversity, Judy Rebick says.
Judy Rebick sees the development of women's studies courses in Canadian universities as one of the engines that has powered the feminist movement over the past 30 years and changed the role of women in Canadian society.
Rebick, one of Canada's best-known feminists and political commentators, made that observation during the course of the Inaugural Lecture of York's School of Women's Studies, which she delivered on Monday, April 6 in Osgoode Hall Law School's Moot Court. Rebick's lecture looked at women's progress and asked, "where do we go from here?"
When Rebick was in university in the 1960s, not one of her professors was a woman. But now, largely thanks to the pioneering women who began women's studies programs in the 1970s, woman professors are not far to seek.
The progress that feminism and women's studies have made within the academic sphere has produced progress for women generally, Rebick said. She paid tribute to the new School of Women's Studies at York and urged feminists in the University community to join with grass-roots feminist activists and use the knowledge they have gained through academic work to effect change within the community.
In a wide-ranging speech that discussed women in Canadian politics, childcare in Quebec, women's paid and unpaid work, women in the global economy, and social conservatism, Rebick asked: "Is There a Future for Feminism?"
"I guess you know my answer, it's not a big mystery," she began, before explaining that there are some important challenges still facing the feminist movement in the next century.
Equality in the domestic sphere
Rebick discussed the unsettling results of a recently released Statistics Canada report about unpaid work within the home. Although women have made great gains in the world of paid work, she said, they are still doing the lion's share of unpaid work, whether it is housework and home maintenance or child care.
Statistics Canada figures show that among married women with full-time jobs, 64 per cent spend more than 15 hours a week caring for their kids, as compared to 42 per cent of husbands working full-time. But the astounding figure, said Rebick, is that among husbands who are not working outside the home, only 30 per cent spend more than 15 hours caring for their kids.
Without a change in the domestic division of labour, feminists can never win the battle for equality in the paid workplace, Rebick said. One of the primary barriers to workplace equality is the fact that women have so many more responsibilities outside of work, she said.
Now that feminism has been through a phase of "pretending that men didn't exist," feminists have to recognize that what men do can have a very significant impact on the lives of women, she said.
Feminists should overcome the polarization and disagreements that surround the issue of unpaid work, Rebick said. "We didn't push hard enough on valuing women's traditional role" so that men would appreciate "the liberation of nurturing."
Rebick wants feminists to push for public policies that encourage more equality within the home. She praised recent childcare policies adopted by the Quebec government, whose result will be that the number of government-funded childcare places will now be exactly equal to the number of parents who want them.
There is a crisis in the community and within families, and people need to spend more time with their children, she said. That issue is probably one of the very few on which she and neo-conservatives might agree, said Rebick. "But the [neo-conservatives'] solutions are wrong."
National childcare, more flexible work schedules (including shorter work weeks), and better parental leave programs are the among the best solutions to the crisis, she said.
Global equality
Rebick outlined a second challenge for feminism: to extend its reach around the world and "bring the wisdom and anti-elitism of feminism to the global struggle for social change in general." The many groups of socially active women around the world are in an ideal position to make links with one another and lead the fight against global poverty and the growing polarization between rich and poor, she said.
Not all feminists would agree that globalization and capitalism need to change before women can achieve true equality, conceded Rebick. "There are conservative feminists, and I have a lot of respect for them, but I think they're wrong" when it comes to their views on the economy, she said.
"We live in a society based on elites where the power elite not only rules the world, but it gets to define reality for all of us," said Rebick. It is not enough to fight for equality for all women across race, class and sexual orientation feminists need to fight to change the very institutions and structures that make up global capitalism, she said.
Rebick rejected the two options that she said are being presented to humanity as options for the future: either globalization and survival of the fittest or fundamentalism and social conservatism. She wants feminists to present a third option, one that doesn't ask all of us to conform to a standard imposed by male elites, one that celebrates diversity.
"Diversity works best in nature, and it's also what works best in society," said Rebick. The feminist movement, because of the 30-year struggle within its ranks, is best equipped to recognize diversity, to broaden its perspective and to challenge a world economic system that imposes one standard and punishes those who don't live up to it, she said.
Rebick's lecture followed introductions by University President Lorna Marsden and Susan Ehrlich, chair of the School of Women's Studies.
The school brings together more than 200 faculty members in a variety of disciplines, a graduate program with the only free-standing Women's Studies PhD in Canada, the Centre for Feminist Research, the Nellie Langford Rowell Library, bridging courses (offering mature women students the opportunity to upgrade their academic skills in preparation for university), and the internationally renowned journal Canadian Woman Studies/les cahiers de la femme.
Herren and Panitch chosen as Distinguished Research Professors by SGS committee
The selection committee of the Faculty of Graduate Studies has chosen Professor Michael Herren, Department of Humanities, Atkinson College, and Professor Leo Panitch, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Arts, as the recipients of the honorific of Distinguished Research Professor.
The title will be conferred upon Professor Panitch at the Spring 1998 Faculty of Graduate Studies Convocation and upon Professor Herren at the Fall 1998 Convocation.
Faculty of Education Gala Anniversary and Awards Dinner is May 7
The Alumni Association of York's Faculty of Education is inviting all interested parties to join the 25th anniversary celebrations of the faculty, including a Gala Anniversary and Awards Dinner, a colloquium series, and a panel discussion followed by wine-and-cheese.
The dinner will be Thursday, May 7 in Vari Hall Rotunda, with cocktails at 6:30 p.m. and dinner at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $25 per person.
Design graduating class mounts exhibition
An exhibition entitled 32 Point Perspective celebrates the creativity, insights and individual perspectives of the 32 design students graduating from York in 1998.
The work on display includes multi-media and digital explorations, and visual communication design, together with a personal statement from each graduate.
The show runs Tuesday, May 5 through Sunday, May 10 at the Design Exchange, 234 Bay Street. The weekday hours are 10 a.m.-6 p.m. and weekend hours are noon-5 p.m.
Additional information is available on the 32 Point Perspective website at www.finearts.yorku.ca/ DesignWeb/32pt.
Trillium book award finalist has a dozen York connections
Eight of the 28 contributing authors of Oak Ridges Moraine, one of eight finalists for the 1998 Trillium Award, are connected to York University, Jane Hargraft, external relations specialist with the Faculty of Environmental Studies, has discovered.
The beautifully designed and photo-illustrated book, compiled by the STORM (Save The Oak Ridges Moraine) Coalition and published by Erin Mills Press, celebrates the moraine as an environmental treasure. It was selected for the award shortlist from among more than 200 books that were submitted for consideration.
The Oak Ridges Moraine contributors include: David McQueen, chair of the STORM Coalition's book committee, a contributor of two chapters to the book, and professor emeritus at York; Ian Deslauriers, Arts '72; Christopher Conti, MES '75; Fiona Cowles, MES '95; Paul Harpley, MA '92; James Kamstra, MES '87; Susan Erskine Elgear, MES '90 and Niva Rowan, BA '73. Anna Tilman, Co-Chair of the STORM Coalition, is a Senior Fellow at the Faculty of Environmental Studies.
The winner of the $12,000 Trillium Award, announced in early April, was Dionne Brand with her book of poems, Land to Light On, published by McLelland & Stewart.
York Lanes Medical Centre changes hands
HealthLink Clinic Inc. has purchased York Lanes Medical Centre from Collegiate Health Care, Greenlight Communications Inc. has announced. HealthLink is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Greenlight.
"The centre will be the HealthLink Virtual Clinic's development centre and first demonstration site," according to a press release. "York Lanes will continue to maintain its present clinical environment and patient care facilities during the development and demonstration of a state-of-the-art electronic healthcare network.
"The HealthLink Virtual Clinic is a new service to be offered to subscribers, which provides the consumer[s] and their HealthLink medical team online access to their patient record[s]. The clinic is based on a unique electronic health record that is secure, accurate and comprehensive," the release states.
In addition to the electronic record, HealthLink plans to provide internet searches/push technology customized for the client, online health promotion, worldwide travel access to patients' record in emergencies, a 24-hour home health line, online access to lab and imaging test results and medication history and information.
