South Shore – St. Margaret’s member of parliament is heading to the UN for the Commission on the Status of Women meeting.
Bernadette Jordan is going to be part of a group presenting on indigenous women and access to the legal system.
“We’ll just be talking about some of the testimony we’ve heard, some of things that people have been saying and what we’ve learned and how we have to do better.”
Jordan says a study done by Status of Women Canada showed Indigenous women are over represented in Canada’s prisons and often lack legal support.
The UN has criticized Canada’s treatment of indigenous people in the past.
Jordan says things won’t change overnight but that her government is committed to improvement.
“In the recent budget there’s been a number of intitiatives to help First Nations Communities, this is a problem that was 150 years in the making, it’s not going to be solved overnight but we’re definitely committed to making sure we have a better nation to nation relationship.”
The week long event takes place in New York city where the focus of talks will be on achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls
That’s something Jordan says is important to her, given that her riding is mostly rural.
She’s eager to hear presentations on rural women in the economy as well as on misogyny women face in parliament, which has been a hot topic in Ottawa for the past few years.
Jordan says she’s hoping to bring back lots of information for Canada’s Status of Women Committee, which Jordan joined in October.
“Is there best practices we could put in place, are there recommendations we could make to government to better serve our populations?” says Jordan. “I think that’s one of the biggest take aways.”
The week-long event starts next week at the United Nations headquarters in New York City.
