Three prairie farm women are among the official Canadian delegation of
10 that is being funded to attend the third World Congress on Rural
Women in Madrid, Spain, Oct. 2-4.
Up to a dozen more women may be attending as private individuals, said
Gail Erickson of Agriculture Canada’s Farm Women’s Bureau. She is the
only government official who will be accompanying the delegation.
The western farm women are Alberta resident Faye Mayberry, president of
the Federated Women’s Institutes of Canada, Manitoba resident Maxine
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Routledge, the FWIC agricultural committee chair, and Robin Fenell,
chair of the Saskatchewan Women’s Agricultural Network, or SWAN.
Other farm women in the delegation are Colleen Ross Weatherhead from
the National Farmers Union Ontario region, Carmen Ducharme, president
of the Fédération des Agricultrices du Québec, and New Brunswick
resident Carolyn Van Dine, president of the Canadian Farm Women’s
Network.
Ottawa is also paying for an aboriginal representative – Helen
McPhaden, executive director of the Stardale Women’s Group Inc.
Foundation in Saskatchewan; a fisheries representative – Mary desRoches
of Nova Scotia; co-operative representatives – Marian Lucas Jefferies
of Atlantic Canada and Francine Ferland of Quebec; and possibly a woman
from British Columbia.
Erickson said the eligibility criteria for funding was set in
consultation with the federal government’s rural, co-op and women’s
secretariats and farm women’s groups, and feedback from past delegates.
The final list was compiled through a vote among the national farm
women’s groups, a process that Erickson described as “lengthy and
painful,” since not everyone could go.
She said the delegation will have to make some time before the
conference to meet and determine its goals and common themes.
SWAN member Rosella Diduck of Kamsack, Sask., is paying her own way to
go. She was a delegate at previous congresses in Australia and
Washington, D.C. Her biggest concern is the need to revitalize rural
communities. She said people get pushed into cities after schools,
hospitals and jobs leave small towns.
Rural development is also a concern for Routledge, who wants to learn
ways to keep young people at home in a viable community. The Lenore,
Man., woman attended the Washington, D.C., conference and said many
similar concerns were shared there by delegates from around the globe.
The timing of the Spanish conference is awkward, she said. While
harvest is done on her farm, the feedlot is starting to get busy.
As a Saskatchewan farm woman, Fenell wants to find out what other rural
women in the world think about genetically modified organisms and trade
wars caused by subsidies.
“We sit thinking all the other farmers are getting wealthy,” she said,
and it may not be correct.
