Dear Mr. Prime Minister and all those it may concern,
When you were first elected you decided to make your cabinet 50% female, since we are 50% of the country. When you were asked why, you said, “Because it’s 2016.” You made a powerful statement that it is no longer acceptable to discriminate against women in Canada. But in your almost 5 years in office since then, Canada has fallen on the World Economic Forum’s ranking of most gender equal countries. That could mean that other countries are just excelling, but it highlights that Canada (even with you, a self-proclaimed feminist as a leader) still needs to deal with sexism and misogyny.
I could list to you 100 ways women are still treated as “less than” in Canada, but I want to highlight something not enough people talk about. All over the world, women are getting the brunt of the blow of climate change.
Let’s start with some facts. As the effects of climate change worsen, people in the global south are left struggling for food. The level of child brides has increased because many families need the money they’d get from selling their daughters off to feed themselves. These girls are as young as 13. That’s a year younger than me. The Guardian reported that around 1.5 million girls are at risk of being married off as a direct result of climate change, as a direct result of climate inaction by rich countries like Canada. Yet again, we are witnessing the world’s willingness to sacrifice young girls of colour so that they can keep making money. Every single girl represented by that stat of 1.5 million is a human with hopes and dreams that must be protected.
But there’s more. The UN says that 80% of people displaced by the climate crisis are women, and after being displaced, those women will be at higher rates of gender based violence. Studies also show that when catastrophe strikes it is women who do the majority of the recovery work.
Women are being most affected by the climate crisis, and most of those women are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour). You cannot claim that you are trying to support women and girls around the world if you are not acting on climate change. In action on climate change is a crime against women.
I hope you have a wonderful day!
Amelia Penney-Crocker