Metadata

The Saskatchewan Action Committee, Status of Women (SAC) played a key role in supporting the women’s movement in Saskatchewan and in advocating for social, political, and economic reforms that would benefit women and other vulnerable groups. Created in the 1970s, it grew into a well-established multi-issue organization with stable government funding and a province-wide board of directors in the 1980s.

SAC’s broad mandate allowed it to engage in lobbying and political action on a wide range of public policy issues. Often, it would identify an issue, initiate a community-based action, and then assist in the creation of a new organization that could focus its energies on that priority. In the 1980s, for example, SAC was involved in the development of the Saskatchewan Battered Women’s Advocacy Network, the Saskatchewan Coalition Against Pornography, and Mothers Without Custody. It also worked with groups such as the Native Women’s Association, Immigrant Women of Saskatchewan, and various rural women’s groups.

Defending women’s social, political, and economic rights aligned with the need to oppose the right-wing policies of the Progressive Conservative government of Grant Devine in the 1980s. SAC became a strong public voice for those harmed by cuts to welfare programs, and the erosion of funding to post-secondary education, health care, and community-based organizations, such as crisis centres. SAC also advocated for equality in the workplace and lobbied for meaningful employment equity and pay equity legislation.

SAC activists worked collaboratively with progressive groups such as the People’s Budget Coalition, and the Saskatchewan Coalition for Social Justice.

SAC published “Network of Saskatchewan Women” throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s.

Susan Dusel, Communications Coordinator,
Saskatchewan Action Committee, Status of Women, 1984 – 1991.

Saskatchewan Action Committee, Status of Women Documents

	Title	Date	Region
	The Mayor’s Task Force on Women’s Issues (1988)	1988	Saskatchewan
	The Pink Papers: Government Funding and Government Control in the Women’s Movement	1983	Saskatchewan