{"id":20176,"date":"2018-03-21T15:54:37","date_gmt":"2018-03-21T19:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20176"},"modified":"2018-03-21T15:54:37","modified_gmt":"2018-03-21T19:54:37","slug":"view-from-queens-park-leading-womengirls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/view-from-queens-park-leading-womengirls\/","title":{"rendered":"VIEW FROM QUEEN’S PARK: Leading Women\/Girls"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Chris Ballard, MPP
\nNewmarket-Aurora<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last week I had the honour of celebrating International Women\u2019s day by bestowing 23 women and girls in Newmarket\u2013Aurora with recognition awards for their volunteer leadership in the community. These amazing women were celebrated at my annual Leading Women\/Leading Girls Building Communities Recognition Program.
\nSpurred by the Ontario Ministry for the Status of Women, the award recognizances women who are breaking down barriers and encouraging girls to get involved in careers where women are generally underrepresented.
\nThese community leaders are actively promoting issues such as equality, diversity, healthy equal relationships, violence prevention and reducing racism and discrimination. By leading the way, others in the community are lead by these women and girls to participate in public or community service, or mentoring, coaching, leading events or organizations and being in countless ways in their communities.
\nMarch 5 to 11 was International Women\u2019s Week it\u2019s celebrated across the province, recognizing the economic, political, and social achievements that outstanding women and girls have made in Ontario. Recognizing the civic contribution of women and girls is part of Ontario\u2019s plan to create jobs, grow our economy and help people in their everyday lives. The highlight of this week takes place on March 8\u2014International Women\u2019s Day.
\nThis year\u2019s recipients are strong role models who provide a positive example to women and girls in their community. This year we recognized three representatives from the York Regional Police department. We had four young women whose accomplishments included encouraging other young girls to get involved with STEM, supporting senior\u2019s throughout our community and supporting people with Alzheimer\u2019s. We also had 19 women who are essential to supporting Mental Health, human trafficking and local non-profit organizations such as Inn from the Cold and the Newmarket Food Pantry.
\nI would like to congratulate Catherine Callaghan, Carol Rose-Kelduka, Lily Edmunds, Gwyneth Anderson, Martha Berry, Melissa Shafa, Lynn Bird, Tahirih Naylor-Thimm, Judy Brunton, Casandra Diamond, Deborah Gladding, Ashley Szakal, Sarid Layton, Bessie Shinas-Vlasis, Heather Bull-Senay, Karen Richards, Janis Bell, Toyin Adekusibe, Arianna Skoloudik, Tracee Chambers, Maya Bishop, Amanda Bishop and Elisabeth Hempen.
\nThese women and girls are the heart of our community. They encourage others around them to be better, and set positive examples for all who are fortunate enough to be in their company.
\nWhy do we work so hard to recognize these local leaders?
\nInternational Women\u2019s Week was established by the United Nations almost twenty years ago. It set out priorities and measures of success for alleviating poverty and improving health and education throughout the world. The target for completion was 2015 and we did see some progress.
\nHowever, we still see 51 per cent of the world\u2019s population making lower wages for work of equal value. We see women and girls overwhelmingly the targets of sex trafficking. The past few months have seen an unprecedented airing of sexual violence and harassment in the workplace. And we still have underrepresentation in senior positions in the public and private sectors.
\nAs a government, Ontario\u2019s goal is for all women and girls to have access to and benefit from economic and social opportunities, have diverse leadership roles, and are able to participate fully in society. We will do this by: continuing to improve access to education, skills development, entrepreneurship and employment, promoting opportunities for women and girls through public institutions, such as schools and removing barriers that limit women and girls from reaching their full potential.
\nWe cannot do it alone. Women\u2019s economic empowerment can be achieved through partnerships between business, government, public institutions and communities. Achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls will require vigorous efforts, including legal framework, to counter deeply rooted gender-based discrimination that often results from patriarchal attitudes and related social norms.
\nI encourage everyone to follow the lead of these inspirational women and girls that I had the pleasure of meeting. In the Ontario government, our priority is fairness, when you strip race, creed, and color at the end we are all human beings. I recently heard a timely quote by Ani Castillo, \u201cDo not treat me like a man, do not treat me like women, but treat me like a fellow human being.\u201d
\nI look forward to continually supporting women and girls in our community who are role models for us all, and make us proud to be part of such a giving community.
\nDid you know\u2026According to Bob McRoberts\u2019 publication Postcards of Olde Aurora, organized sports were introduced to the Aurora High School in 1918 and in the 1951\/52 yearbook documented that \u201cduring the early 1900s the girls began their struggle for equality with the boys in the field of athletics\u201d.
\nAs always, I invite you to contact me on any issue. Please call my community office at 905-750-0019, or visit my website at www.ChrisBallardMPP.ca. My email is: cballard.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org. I look forward to hearing from you.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Chris Ballard, MPP Newmarket-Aurora Last week I had the honour of celebrating International Women\u2019s day by bestowing 23 women and girls in Newmarket\u2013Aurora with recognition awards for their volunteer leadership in the community. These amazing women were celebrated at my annual Leading Women\/Leading Girls Building Communities Recognition Program. Spurred by the Ontario Ministry for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5fq","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-02 15:10:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}