The Policy Paper “Canada's Digital Future: Ensuring Girls' and Women's Right to Participate” is available here.
Years of Canadian public policy have made online participation essential to Canadians’ social, cultural, economic, political and democratic lives. The Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development of Canada’s recently unveiled Digital Charter reinforces the importance of engaging with gender-based technology-facilitated violence, and discrimination and harassment. Given the increasingly seamless integration of online and offline experiences (especially for young Canadians), unequal online participation undermines girls’ and women’s participation in all spheres of life. It is therefore essential to develop a comprehensive national digital strategy that includes measures to meaningfully address these constraints.
About the Authors
Prof. Jane Bailey is a Full Professor within the Faculty of Law, Common Law Section and Dr. Valerie Steeves is a Full Professor with the Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Criminology. The two CLTS Faculty members are co-leaders of The eQuality Project, a SSHRC Partnership Grant promoting evidence-based policies that aimed at creating equality-affirming and privacy-enhancing spaces for young people, with a particular focus on youth from marginalized communities.
About the uOttawa IMPACT Forum
The IMPACT 2019 Forum will be hosted at the University of Ottawa on June 18, 2019. The Forum is a joint effort between professors from the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Social Sciences that aims to bring together academics, government officials, and other interested stakeholders in a non-partisan discussion and sharing of experience related to policy across all levels of government in Canada. Panellists will discuss such wide-ranging issues as digital security; immigration; climate change mitigation strategies; la Francophonie; criminal justice reform; and, foreign aid.