The Cowichan Valley Regional District is looking at providing free menstrual products in all its public facilities.
The board passed a motion at its meeting on July 24 that all the district’s recreation commissions incorporate supplemental funding for a program to provide free menstrual products in their facilities’ public washrooms, as well as in community halls.
The move is being considered as the first step in a program that could eventually see free period products provided in all the CVRD’s washrooms in public facilities.
The United Way’s Period Promise program is a campaign that calls for increases to access to menstrual products, and for local governments to play a pivotal role in addressing period poverty within their communities, and the board wants to participate in it.
At a meeting in June, the board voted to recognize that almost one quarter of Canadian menstruators say they have struggled to afford menstrual products for themselves or their children, and that people who are menstruating but do not have menstrual products available to them experience social isolation, financial instability and increased mental-health concerns by not being able to attend school, work or community activities without experiencing stigma and shame.
The board also decided at the June meeting that staff be directed to research the cost of providing period products in all CVRD facilities and report back in advance of the 2025 budget process.
A staff report by Kim Liddle, the CVRD’s acting general manager of community services, that was presented at the meeting on July 24 concluded that it would cost approximately $40,000 to install dispensers and provide menstrual products in all 50 public washrooms in the CVRD’s recreation centres.
The cost of providing free menstrual products in the 88 washrooms in all the CVRD’s public facilities is estimated to be approximately $70,000.
Duncan Mayor Michelle Staples said that with the rising cost of groceries and other everyday expenses, life is becoming increasingly financially challenging, and she’s in favour of providing free menstrual products for women.
“[Menstrual products] should not be commodified in any way to begin with,” she said.
“Maybe there’s a way to push something at other levels of government as part of this as well to advocate for the necessity of these products. It is becoming more of a challenge for people.”
