Starting in 2022, the government will provide $ 25 million over two years to create a national pilot program that will help make menstrual products available to Canadians.
Women and Gender Equality in Canada will be responsible for creating the project.
Kevin Hiebert, business development director at Changing the Flow, said teams directly affected by the lack of access should lead the discussion on how to achieve proper menstrual equality.
That would mean approaching people who are racially, gender-incompatible, disabled and experiencing other forms of marginalization, Hibbert said.
“Go where it is and say, ‘How do you feel about solving the poverty of the period?’  he said.
Bhanvi Sachdeva, Plan International Canada’s youth advocate, said this work should be sure to meet the needs of these groups, while also taking into account the climate.
That means moving away from disposable products to reusable, Sachdeva said.
Palwashah Ali, co-chair of the defense of Bleed The North, said she had noticed that such government programs were often gendered and reached very low standards of equality.
“There are a variety of people with different gender identities, with different experiences, who go through menstruation,” Ali said.
The letter of mandate for Minister of Women and Gender Equality Marci Ien instructed her to set up a fund so that non-profit organizations and shelters could distribute products freely to “vulnerable women”.
The budget rejected the report on the basis of gender and said instead that the fund would help “Canadians in need”.
NDP lawmaker Leah Gazan, a critic of women and gender equality, said Monday that these products should be treated as a basic hygiene product, such as toilet paper.
“It is about dignity and ensuring that people have what they need to live with dignity, and that includes period health products, especially for those who can not afford it,” Gazan said.
Lawmaker Karen Vecchio, a conservative critic of women and gender equality, said on Tuesday that she did not support the subsidy for menstrual products and would like to approach the issue differently.
“Is it a subsidy to keep paying $ 10 for a box of tampons or will we try to start doing something different?”  said Vecchio.
Vecchio said it would like to look further into the deeper reasons why menstruation costs so much, whether due to tariffs or surcharges along the supply chain.
“People are making money from people who need these products. I do not think it is a government solution,” he said.
Ien told the House of Commons on March 22 that it was consulting with equality bodies to update their work.
Riyadh Nazerally, a spokesman for Ien’s office, said in a statement on Wednesday that the minister and his team had begun consulting with educational institutions, businesses, non-profit organizations and other government departments.
When asked if Ien would set up a formal consultation process, Nazerally did not respond directly, but said they would continue to hold consultations “to make the equality of the period a reality”.
“Support for menstruating women is long overdue and is part of our government’s plan to build a fairer Canada,” she said.
The Liberal government set up a public consultation process on the provision of menstrual products in federally regulated workplaces, which was completed in September 2021.
Hiebert of Changing the Flow said the consultations would be worthwhile if they were intended to find out what the people using the fund need and use these findings to better meet those needs.
“Unless this happens … it is not necessary. In general, what needs to be done is known,” he said.
Gabrielle Trépanier, another defense co-chair with Bleed The North, said she believes there is an absolute need for a full consultation to make sure the program is successful for any type of person trying to reach out.
The information circulating about menstruation does not always highlight all the people who experience it, Trépanier said.
“We often have people like natives or people with menstrual disabilities who get lost in these programs because there is not so much consultation,” he said.
This Canadian Press report was first published on April 8, 2022.
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This story was created with the financial support of Meta and the Canadian Press News Fellowship.