Submission to the BC Budget 2020 consultations
In June 2020, West Coast LEAF made submissions to the budget consultations held by the government of BC Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. We urged the committee to keep front of mind the following fact: if we do not urgently scale up efforts to combat gender inequality, we will see long-term and major setbacks to the realization of gender justice in BC. Our submissions highlighted the correlation between the COVID-19 pandemic and rising gender inequality, and we offered two concrete actions the government should urgently take to address deepening gender inequalities and, in particular, to combat gender-based violence:
- Task and resource the Ministry of Health in the upcoming budget year to fund and coordinate an improved health response to sexual assault in BC; and
- Fund Legal Aid BC to ensure full and comprehensive legal representation for child support applications if the recipient or their child (children) are at risk of family violence.