This past April, our team members, Simone Blais and Aunjrya Fleming, attended MinoFest ’26. This conference invites Canada’s top healthcare professionals, advocates, policymakers, researchers, parents, and technology leaders dedicated to advancing equity in perinatal and reproductive healthcare for racialized communities.

This year’s program explored how data is collected, governed, protected, and mobilized in order to improve perinatal and reproductive health outcomes for racialized communities. Simone and Aunjrya had the amazing opportunity to listen to expert speakers on recent academic research, engage in community-oriented breakout sessions, and discuss practical approaches to advancing culturally safe and equitable care. We are grateful to MinoFest and its attendees for platforming evidence-based and ethical conversations that support community-driven care, and we thank Simone and Aunjrya for sharing this knowledge as part of our Over-represented and Under-Protected Reproductive Justice Project.

The Over-Represented and Under-Protected Reproductive Justice Project aims to strengthen solidarity, examine barriers to culturally safe reproductive and sexual healthcare, increase collective accountability, and centre lived experience through community-based participatory research. Stay tuned for more updates from this initiative, and be sure to check out some of these findings on our Reproductive Justice Knowledge Hub: https://hub.womenatthecentre.com

At a news conference in Ottawa, representatives from a coalition of feminist organizations call on the federal government to make changes to the Divorce Act. Taking part were Tiffany Butler, executive director of the National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL), and Julie Rioux, whose petition (e-4517) calls for changes to the use of “parental alienation” and associated concepts in family child custody cases.

They were joined by Suzanne Zaccour (director of legal affairs, NAWL), Nneka MacGregor (executive director, WomenatthecentrE), Grace Tabaka (director, Défense des droits des jeunes, Regroupement des Auberges du cœur), and Deepa Mattoo (executive director, Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic).

.

Watch the video of the news conference on CPAC