Resetting Normal Reports

Resetting Normal is a series of reports on gender equality and the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. The series explores risks to human rights exposed by the pandemic and proposes new ways to build a gender-equal Canada in pandemic recovery efforts.

Resetting Normal Summary Report: Building Intersectional Gender Justice in Post-Pandemic Canada

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As Canada grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, many want to return to “normal” as quickly as possible. But “normal” is deeply flawed, especially for women, girls, and Two Spirit, trans, and non-binary people.

The pandemic exposes hard truths.

It’s “normal” that the people getting harmed the most are the people already facing the worst inequities, including women, vulnerable seniors, people living on low incomes, Black, Indigenous, and racialized communities, people with disabilities, people who identify as 2SLGBTQI+, and people who
are immigrants, migrants, and/or undocumented.

It’s “normal” for people who experience the worst problems to have the least say in solving them. It’s “normal” to view equality as “nice to have” – but not an essential feature of a healthy society. It’s “normal” to give the most vulnerable people in society the lowest priority for care.

It’s time to reset normal.

Resetting Normal Full Reports

Report 1: Funding a Thriving Women's Sector

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As women experience higher rates of gender-based violence and financial precarity, organizations that serve them are at the leading edge of innovative and timely responses. But decades of underfunding have robbed organizations of the capacity to truly meet community needs for these essential services. The COVID-19 crisis is an opportunity to change this and forge ahead with new resources for the women’s sector.

Summary of Recommendations:

Provide core funding to women-serving organizations and equity-seeking organizations
Guarantee a gender-based analysis plus in policy-making; involve the women’s sector in decision-making at all levels of government
Ensure a gender-based analysis plus in data collection on the non-profit and charitable sector
Make gender-based analysis plus a requirement in transfer payments from the federal government to provinces and territories and in agreements with non-profits and charities

Co-authors: Ontario Nonprofit Network (ONN), Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Kathleen Lahey

Contributor: Imagine Canada

Report 2: Women, Decent Work, and Canada's Fractured Care Economy

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Read the full report (French)

Economic losses due to COVID-19 have fallen heavily on women, and most dramatically on women living on low incomes who experience intersecting inequalities based on race, class, disability, education, migration, and immigration status. The pandemic crisis has revealed the fragility of response systems and the urgent need for structural rethinking and systemic change.

An historic downturn in women’s employment, compounded by uncertainty over the capacity of the fragile and fragmented childcare sector to fully reopen, is shaping up as a potential disaster for women’s economic security.

Recovery planning provides an opportunity to eliminate gender bias in economic thinking and public policy that has neglected the value of social infrastructure, and instead promoted austerity and deregulation. Transformative policies that support both paid and unpaid caring labour will be crucial to stopping the looming erosion of women’s economic and social rights. Recovery plans must centre women’s economic well-being and the experiences of diverse and marginalized communities of women.

Summary of Recommendations:

Revitalize social infrastructure through care sector investments
Ensure care work is decent work
Focus public investments to transform care sectors, including long-term care, childcare, violence against women and gender-based violence services

Co-authors: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Ontario Nonprofit Network, and Fay Faraday

Report 3: Systemic Gender-Based Violence and the Pandemic

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This report explores some of the historical and present-day root causes of gender-based violence and the effects of state violence on women, bringing forward the experiences of women who navigate state systems created within Canada’s settler colonial history.

Women are confronted with structural racism, sexism, heteronormativity, and ableism, and this report explores how to address these barriers. The implementation of the National Action Plan on Violence Against Women and Gender-Based Violence, along with grassroots prevention programs at all life stages, and a renewed relationship with policing, criminal and legal systems, will all help.

Summary of recommendations:

As a society, in our work, and in all the ways we address gender-based violence, we must seek:

Increased support for grassroots movements and women’s services
Greater acknowledgement from governments about the role of colonization in violence against women and gender-based violence.
Alternatives to the criminal legal system
We all have a role to play in ending systemic racism and discrimination by educating ourselves and promoting the strength, knowledge and expertise of BIPOC women.

Co-authors: Women’s Shelters Canada; Pauktuutit, Inuit Women of Canada; Anita Olsen Harper (NACAFV); Jihan Abbas (DAWN-RAFH Canada)

Report 4: Beyond the Pandemic: Gender, Intersectionality, Leadership

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Canada has celebrated women’s leadership in the pandemic. But diverse women, trans, Two-Spirit, and non-binary people still remain vastly underrepresented in leadership roles. Our latest Resetting Normal Report gives direction for policymakers to clear the path to representative and decision-making positions. Without the voices of Black, Indigenous, and racialized women and gender-diverse leaders, policy decisions will sustain systemic oppression and further marginalize underfunded, underserved communities. Diverse leaders are critical to a reset that can bring lasting pandemic recovery and gender justice.

Summary of Recommendations:

Strengthen the Social Determinants of Civic Engagement
Advance Women’s Representation in Leadership
Decolonize Leadership and Qualifications
Develop Leadership of Young Women, and Transgender and Two-Spirit People
Address Leadership and Decision-Making in COVID Recovery

Co-author: Platform, a civic leadership platform for Black, Indigenous, and racialized young women and gender-diverse youth

Contributor: Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM)

Report 5: The Impacts of COVID-19 on First Nations, Métis and Inuit Youth

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This report sheds light on the realities of women, Two-Spirit, and gender diverse youth with over 80% of survey respondents identifying as such. Thus, it explores the impact of the pandemic on Indigenous youth and gender-based violence, and shares recommendations for how to better serve First Nations, Métis and Inuit youth moving forward.

Co-Authors: Taylor Arnt and Courtney Vaughan

Contributor: Tori Chief Calf

Report Toolkit
The report creators also developed a toolkit to support organizations in developing surveys for their own communities.
English
French
Inuktitut