Official Launch of Coalition for a Carleton Sexual Assault Centre

The Coalition for a Carleton Sexual Assault Centre officially launched a sexual assault support line for Carleton students, staff and faculty March 22nd, 2010 at 8am.

The number is 613-620-1030 and the line is open from 8am to midnight, 7 days a week.

The line offers free, confidential, peer support to all Carleton students, staff, and faculty regardless of gender, sex, sexual orientation, race, religion, ethnicity, citizenship, ability, age,
Mother Tongue or student status.

We are NOT affiliated with Carleton University administration in any way.

Our work is funded through an anonymous donor.

We are trained support workers who work within an anti-oppressive, feminist, survivor-driven framework. We are here for survivors, first and foremost and our creation of the line is a result of feedback from students over the past 3 years. The Coalition has been very active and very public since the fall of 2007 and in doing so, have been approached by hundreds of students either through our rallies, our Facebook group, our e-mail or through the Task Force on Gender-Based Violence, which was held in November, 2009. Students want access to services that are non-judgmental, non-hierarchical and responsive to the needs of the student body. Survivors want to be heard.

At the Task Force in November, we promised students that their demands would be heard. We are meeting that promise.

We are continuing to participate in a working group with Equity Services with the goal of a joint recommendation to President Runte by the end of this semester. The hope is that President Runte will consider our recommendations for improved sexual assault services on
campus and make an announcement in the fall, bringing concrete changes to Carleton. The Coalition is recommending a student-run, university funded sexual assault centre.

For more information, please call or e-mail us at coalitionforcarleton@gmail.com

What does proroguing parliament mean?

Today, in many cities across Canada, there will be rallies against our government's proroguing of parliament, but why are people so upset?

According to the Anti-Prorogation website, Proroguing means:

1. All 37 bills being debated in Parliament are thrown in the trash. Discussion on bills starts from scratch in March, wasting months of hard work by all parties. These bills included new crime legislation, limits on credit card insurance rates, etc.
2. Committees investigating accusations of torture of Afghan detainees stop working
3. Discussions and decisions about the pension crisis affecting Canada’s seniors stops
4. Questions about Canada’s inaction at the Copenhagen climate-change summit are silenced. Opportunities to move forward with Canada’s plan for sustainable development are stalled for over a month.
5. Your MPs cannot raise your concerns in Ottawa
   

"That government officials or politicians may have been negligent in safeguarding the treatment of Afghan detainees, thus violating the Geneva Conventions, is of no real concern to most Canadians, the Tories maintain.

They are almost certainly right. But the fact remains that proroguing Parliament shuts down the committee that was the source of the most embarrassing revelations about government bungling in Afghanistan. The Military Police Complaints Commission, which was also looking into the affair, is effectively suspended until the government gets around to appointing a new commissioner.

By government design, all official inquiry into this matter has been terminated until March, at least. The Conservatives aren't concerned? They have a strange way of showing it."

I'll see you on the hill.

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