WOMEN VETERANS’ FORUM 2020

Lisa Campbell, Associate Deputy Minister, Veterans Affairs Canada Photo Credit: Government of Canada

Lisa Campbell, Associate Deputy Minister, Veterans Affairs Canada

 Photo Credit: Government of Canada

Esprit de Corps Magazine December 2020 // Volume 27 Issue 11

Let's Talk About Women in the Military – Column 21

 

By Military Woman

Question:

Was there a 2020 Women Veterans' Forum?

Answer:

Yes! Before we discuss the 2020 Women Veterans' Forum (WVF), let's do a quick review of why such forums are needed in the first place.

Most members of the defence team are aware of the four legally mandated federal equity groups under the Employment Equity Act – women, members of visible minorities, Indigenous peoples, and persons with disabilities. In addition, because of evolved societal awareness and the LGBT Purge class action lawsuit settlement, LGBTQ2 is commonly now considered as an additional equity group. The military, to its credit, has established multiple pathways (e.g., Defence Advisory Groups/networks and senior leadership "Champions") to ensure that any defence team member's inequity concerns are heard and rapidly addressed. There is, however, no equivalent system in place for Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) clients.

VAC primarily listens to systemic veteran concerns through its Ministerial Advisory Groups (MAGs) and various working groups. Unfortunately, VAC doesn't automatically include equity group representation considerations in its selection of veterans for its committees. As a result, there is no recognized mechanism within VAC for women veterans (who represent both the largest and the most rapidly growing of the five equity groups), to have women-specific issues meaningfully heard, prioritized and /or addressed. This defacto institutional silencing of military women-specific inequity concerns signalled the need for new advocacy tactics, such as lobbying government directly for stand-alone women veterans' events.

The culmination of these advocacy efforts was the inaugural Women Veterans' Forum held on May 23, 2019 (Charlottetown, PEI). Lawrence MacAulay, the newly named Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, attended and personally committed to annual women specific forums. The promised in-person May 2020 WVF was understandably rescheduled due to COVID and re-designed as three 90-minute online "update" sessions that ran early this fall. Lisa Campbell, then Associate Deputy Minister of Veterans Affairs, moderated a VAC, CAF, and WAGE (Women and Gender Equality) panel for the first "update" session (Aug. 26, 2020). This session opened with a review of basic equity and GISSO terminology (Gender Identity, Sex at Birth, and Sexual Orientation) to establish a shared understanding of key terms and concepts.

Departmental updates included the tabling of VAC's first GBA+ Strategy  (March 2020), and the creation of the new "Office of Women and LGBTQ2" (July 2019). Stakeholders, however, remain curious as to why the government rejected the many recommended alternative names, including the more inclusive "Office of Health Equity”.

VAC also acknowledged that, historically, veterans have not always felt respected or treated with dignity in their interactions with the department. To address this, several proactive steps to improve future VAC service provision were described (e.g., trauma, gender and culturally informed awareness training for VAC front line staff, and more robust efforts to ensure the meaningful inclusion of veterans' voices and lived experienced at all levels of VAC's work).

Stakeholder key take-aways from this first WVF session included:

  1. Prevention, where possible, of service-related injury and illness for the incoming generation of service women remains a top priority for many injured/ill women veterans. Continued efforts by CAF/ DND, and RCMP/Public Safety, to communicate and work closer together with VAC to capture and integrate women veteran's hard-earned downstream lessons back upstream to CAF is highly encouraged.

  2. VAC's acknowledgement that "one size does not fit all" for its programs, services, benefits and policies are a step in the right direction. Mainstreaming GBA+ throughout the department should go far in addressing the ongoing inequities related to VAC clients' who hold equity group membership(s).

  3. Equity group representation needs to be standard for all VAC advisory and working groups.

VAC also needs senior leadership equity group "Champions" to work closely with VAC staff, VAC clients and CAF Champions. Until this is achieved, important issues, like women's service-related infertility and homelessness, will remain existent but systemically invisible. For more information about these topics, or to watch the any of the previous WVF sessions, please go to VAC’s  “Women and 2SLGBTQI+ Veteran Engagement” page.

Update:

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