Thousands gathered in Ottawa’s downtown for the Women’s March on Jan. 20, marking the one-year anniversary of the first march in Washington, D.C.
Marches were also held across the country in cities like Halifax, Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary, Thunder Bay, Montreal, and Toronto.
According to police estimates, there were between 6,000 to 8,000 people at the march this year, around the same number as last year.
The march began on Parliament Hill around 1 p.m. where people heard speeches from speakers and then made their way down Wellington Street before ending the march at the Bronson Centre.
The first Women’s March took place last year on Jan. 21, where “people of all backgrounds—women and men and gender non-conforming people, young and old, of diverse faiths, differently abled, immigrants and indigenous—came together, 6 million strong, on all seven continents,” according to Women’s March Global’s website.
While last year’s march was focused on U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration, this year’s march had a different focus according to Catherine Butler, organizer of Ottawa’s march.
“Although we’re bombarded with news from the United States and south of us, I am hoping that this march will help people—especially in Ottawa—to turn their eyes north and recognize and really pay attention to the fact that we have a lot of these same issues in Canada,” she said. “They may or may not be to the same degree and to the same extent but we still have a huge problem with inequality.”
When asked why it’s important to hold a Women’s March in Ottawa now, Butler said it’s because Ottawa is not immune to any of the situations that affect women.
“Ottawa is an amazing city to live in. It’s an amazing city to live in for me, but it’s not such an amazing city to live in for women who experience violence daily, who have to live in shelters with their children,” she said.
Butler said there’s inequality between women and men in terms of things such as wages, childcare, and housing responsibilities. She added that there’s still a lot of work to be done.
“There is an inequity in women’s voices and being able to contribute to those political decision making and being a part of political structures,” she said. “I believe that fundamentally impacts why many of these issues haven’t been addressed.”
However, she noted that Ottawa has always been supportive of the Women’s March. This year, they surpassed the 50 per cent mark of their campaign to fund this year’s march in Ottawa.
Butler said, “We’re not done as women and we are not going to stop being loud and holding people in organizations and governments accountable for true equality and working towards that.”
—With files from Salma Mahgoub
Photo by Aaron Hemens
