SHORE50

A lot can change in 50 years, and yet much can also stay the same. SHORE Centre has been privileged to provide services in Waterloo Region since 1972. While the SHORE of today is very different, at our core we have continued to work towards a community that values reproductive rights and inclusive sexual health education. As we reflect on and celebrate the last 50 years, we wanted to find a way to really explore where we have been and to dream about where we need to go. We believe deeply in learning from those who came before us, while also looking to young people for their insights and wisdom on the future of reproductive rights. The SHORE 50 project provided just that: the ability to use storytelling and art to hear about our past and be inspired on our journey forward.

This website brings together the voices of alumni members of the board of directors, alumni staff, educators and volunteers as they share some of their experiences, which were then shared with a group of youth from across Waterloo Region. Together, lead artist Catherine Mellinger and the group of youth with whom she worked, developed the theme, design and structure of the website. This website is in no way attempting to provide a timeline for 50 years of work in reproductive justice or sexual health education. The goal is to engage the community in Waterloo Region and beyond to hear the voices of the people doing the work on the front lines and whose life passion has been to move reproductive justice and sexual health education at SHORE Centre forward. What emerged are four narrative themes, each assigned to a nature element throughout the website you are about to explore.


The why	The political	The barriers	The hopes	Community Insight

What drew me to it I think was that there was so much power in sexuality and that my family couldn’t talk about it. Or, acknowledge it and I thought wow, you know? I grew up in a kind of a big fish in a small pond kind of family, you know? Like, community leaders. What is this powerful, powerful part of life that has silenced my family? The whole idea of choice and people making choices, that were right for them just, I think I learned a lot about that in those years. It was spiritual for me, it is spiritual for me, it’s about the connection to our natural way of being and stuff that is as natural and normal as the sun rising and setting. Yet, we couldn’t embrace it. So that, to me, was quite the mystery. Wendy Newberry Education Coordinator 1983-84 Executive Director 1984-1987 Board of Directors 1988-1989 Counseling Coordinator (contract) summer 1996

I had been living in Ireland, so in Ireland abortion was illegal and a lot of my friends were very involved with Repeal the 8th and I had a lot of feminist friends and I’ve always had a lot of feminist friends and strongly identified as a feminist. But, coming from that environment where I was in a country where people were fighting for the right to really control their reproductive autonomy, and desperately wanted that. Then, fast forward a few months to a new leader who was saying like I'm just going to take this away from you, it just makes you understand how in flux these things can be. They’re not guaranteed rights for anybody, which is absolutely ghastly and like so messed up. So those two things are definitely layered on top of each other and made me want to explore what was happening in my own neighborhood, you know? In my own community and how I could, you know? Support. Caroline Dutka Volunteer 2016-2019 Donor 2016-1019 Fundraising committee SHORE50 - 2021-2022

This is the hospital model, our health model is acute care. Our health model is not prevention, right? And that’s what sexual health is, right? And reproductive justice, this is prevention right? When you talk about mutual aid, peer support, that’s prevention and support, right? And when you talk about AIDS prevention or HIV prevention, again, it’s in the words, prevention, right? So it doesn’t get support. It’s not fun to talk about, it doesn’t capture people’s hearts when you talk about prevention because if we can tell a story about a little kid who’s, idk his lympho-, I forget there’s a common cancer that affects kids eye’s like-. Can you imagine, you’re not gonna not give for that cause, right? Because you’re gonna cure some kid, who can now see for the rest of their life, right? But if you’re talking about, you cannot measure, what happens when you don’t get pregnant. You don’t measure that. There’s no… And you can measure it but it’s really expensive and complicated to measure that kind of benefit right? And we don’t place a value on that because it’s so dramatic, we just love the dramatic stories. Like the narratives, like when you tell a story, that’s what a story looks like - there’s a crisis, it’s resolved, and then it’s better again. That’s what we like, we like that stuff. Monica Bennett SHORE Centre Counselling Coordinator - 1984, Executive Director - 1988-1989

People rise to power, win power, on this issue and it happened recently, the election that elected Doug Ford, and he’s proven his worth and weight, in terms of putting his funding choices in, not in the overall good for all of society but forsakenness. And when he can pull these issues out, it’s just so incredibly wrong. I've just… and we’re not making any progress. And I think this is… this sort of touches on the one board member who said to me, and he was a medical doctor, “People in the healthcare field alone, there are many young docs, who are anti-choice, and they’re anti-choice because they have never seen on their operating table a young woman destroyed by backroom abortions. And we’re not going to get serious healthcare for women, if we still put them into that dangerous place. And he said until you try to save the life of these young women, and he’d seen it more than once, he said it doesn’t make any sense. But when you try to save the lives of young women there's no room for it in the political sphere. There’s just no excuse, no room, nothing. It’s a health issue. Burna Wilton Executive Director - 1989-1995

For our community, I think, one of the challenges has been that historically it has had strong anti-choice organizing. That’s been very well resourced, very well funded, and so they’re able to buy, you know, bus ads and you know, that type of anti-choice advertising. It’s still present in our community, it’s still, you still can drive behind a GRT bus, and see an anti-choice ad, you know, those are still common in our community and that’s something that, well it’s not unique to Kitchener-Waterloo, it is an issue that, that sentiment does exist. That there are still folks who are still donating, who are organizing, holding events, you know, there are still protests outside of clinics that happen. And so when that happens it creates an environment that’s not safe, that’s not welcoming, that doesn’t feel inclusive to people who have had abortion experiences, or have struggled with choice, adoption, things like that. Lyndsey Butcher Board Member - 2012-2014 Executive Director - 2015-2019

Misunderstandings about reproductive justice, a sense that the other side is stronger than they actually are. So there’s still a lot of fear that exists, particularly from healthcare providers. Who I think, that those who are opposed to reproductive justice are stronger than they actually are and so they’re hesitant to come forward and be as supportive as they ought to be. And you know, I know when Mifegymiso - the abortion pill - became available in Ontario and was covered, you know, speaking with healthcare providers about whether or not they were willing to prescribe it, just to their own patients, and there was such reluctance, and fear that, if they were to do that, you know there would be picketers outside their office, that they would be targeted, that they would be harassed, so there’s still is that fear that exists. And in some ways it is legitimate, that does happen, but it’s not to the extent that it was say, in the 90’s. Lyndsey Butcher Board Member - 2012-2014 Executive Director - 2015-2019

The system is probably one of the least consistent aspects of healthcare in the country. I mean we have hospitals that will go to 11 weeks, some will go to 14 weeks, some will go to 20 weeks, like it’s so arbitrary and frustrating that it’s so limited to your postal code what access you have to services. It was incredibly frustrating and you know that’s where, our partnership with Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights, you know their access line, they were supporting folks from all over the country to get to London, and so we would often, you know, be one of those supporters helping them find hotels, and to travel because it’s so inaccessible and throughout the rest of the country. But even here in Kitchener-Waterloo, there’s hard time limits, folks have to go to Hamilton, they have to go to London, it can be very frustrating. Lyndsey Butcher Board Member - 2012-2014 Executive Director - 2015-2019

Doctors have a lot of control over what can and cannot be offered to patients. And similarly schools also have control over whether or not to welcome, like a progressive sexual education program, or even you know, refer students to SHORE like at a counselling session, stuff like that. I don’t know for sure, to what degree certain schools restrict access to this, to SHORE Centre or spreading that information, but I think it’s a potential barrier. Same with specific teachers like we really need people in leadership roles, to advocate for choice, I think. And that would be our community’s leadership. Even like the business community can sponsor SHORE in various things, that would be incredible, which we are seeing, like we are facing now with finding sponsorship for our 50th anniversary. We’d just really like to see the community embrace SHORE instead of you know, keep it at an arm's length because it’s too political. I think that’s so messed up to think choice is political, because choice is just about the individual, the way I see it. How someone decides to do something with their bodies is their choice, not a politician's choice, not anybody else’s choice. Caroline Dutka Volunteer 2016-2019 Donor 2016-1019 Fundraising committee SHORE50 - 2021-2022

The big thing when I was hired was that we had to go begging for the money every year at regional council, then it was provincial money that was coming into the region but the region got to decided, you know, whether or not we got it. And it became, the big, anti-choice, pro-choice show right? Every year - big, big deal. And the whole community knew about it which, it’s so weird, to think about it now. When I came in, I was coming in as somebody who had recently graduated from university. And I remember Marg Vanvleet who was leaving, sitting me down and saying, you got to make a presentation to the Regional council - you can’t wear pink leotards, you can’t wear your peter pan boots, and you can’t wear your long black skirt and your bulky black sweater. You can’t wear those things. And i'm going, “What the f***, where did I just land?” Like it had felt like such a good fit for so long, and then all of a sudden I went “What?” She said they won’t even hear what you have to say. You need to wear the p-word, pantyhose, I swear I haven’t worn any since. Wendy Newberry Education Coordinator 1983-84 Executive Director 1984-1987 Board of Directors 1988-1989 Counseling Coordinator (contract) summer 1996

So there was this one guy, and his name was Ted Fareless, and every year the vote would be so close, that Ted Fareless, I would go and talk to Ted Fareless, and he would say, “ I really support you but my wife will give me a lot of trouble if I actually vote.” And everybody had to declare their vote, it was all recorded, every year it was a recorded vote. Um, and that was a big deal for them, because they got harassed, you know? Many of them, who voted for Planned Parenthood. Anyway yep so I remember trying to tell him that he was a wimp, and uh you know, c’mon like vote with what you know to be right and he… Anyway so every year it was on the fence. Was Ted going to vote for us or was he not, and if it was a tie then what was the chairman going to do? And chairman Ken Sealing always voted in favour of Planned Parenthood, and many of those people at that time said, “This is such a bullshit way to do this,” you know? That money should go directly to Planned Parenthood. Even people who worked in the Region's sexual health program at the time, you know, they couldn’t really say it out loud, but they said it to us many times. You know? What would we do if you’re not around? Right? You’d be seeing all of the young women looking for abortions and not-so young women looking for abortions and you know, you want to keep us around to do that work because you don’t have the muscle to do it. And at the time the medical officer of health was anti-choice and his wife was the chair of the board of Right to Life. And Gerald Evans was his name. And so you know, I was, uh i guess, I remember meeting with him a couple of times and him telling me about things you know? Why, why, he was anti-choice and um, I just feel like a lot of those anti-choice people, some of them anyway, were glad we were doing what we were doing. Because you know? Who else was going to do it? But they weren’t going to be open and say that they supported it, it was just like, yeah you guys just keep doing your thing. Wendy Newberry Education Coordinator 1983-84 Executive Director 1984-1987 Board of Directors 1988-1989 Counseling Coordinator (contract) summer 1996

They were called TACs for short. The law required that abortions only be done in hospitals by physicians and they had to be… every abortion had to be… the case had to be presented to the therapeutic abortion committee, and so, throughout Canada, and in Ontario. Some hospitals would not have those committees even though they were supposed to. They’re made up of three doctors, some hospitals would create committees that were much like a rubber stamp, right. It was just like a formality and it went through. Some hospitals, like stacked there committee so they were, none of them would actually ever get through. Some hospitals would weigh them, and it was, so we all knew who to send where because we knew what would happen, right? And some hospitals had committees where they would, like in Kitchener, my understanding is we knew what the criteria was, and it was hard to get an abortion in Kitchener because, um there were, so few, there were only two physicians who were, who were performing abortions and they had full practices, like they were OBGYN’s. And performing abortions was just a piece of their practice, and they did that, and they did it for the people they felt were the most needy, so in their eyes that was teenage women. Monica Bennett SHORE Centre Counseling Coordinator - 1984, Executive Director - 1988-1989

I want to say 88, this is my understanding of it, there was a priest at one of the high schools that kind of condoned this activity (sexual health education), and there was one young man in particular I don’t remember his name. I need to, I swore I’d never forget it, but I do remember his face, for sure, because I met him later in life. And he was a grade thirteen, was grade thirteen at the time right? He was a grade thirteen student and he was like, he’s tall and slim and would like walk up and down and would just rant, just rant, and would preach, not preach so much, like you know, this is my language like the gospel of the anti-abortion movement. The anti-choice movement, and they had people who were, who literally like blocked themselves, like chained themselves to our doors, right? Monica Bennett SHORE Centre Counseling Coordinator - 1984, Executive Director - 1988-1989

(Speaking about the Pledge a Protester Campaign) About the same time, or some time shortly before that. I had gone to a conference and heard somebody in the Maryland area, from Planned Parenthood Maryland’s week and she told me about something that she had done at her clinic when this sort of thing had happened. I was like this is what we’re doing, so what we did was we had a Pledge a Protestor Campaign. So we, it was a fundraising thing. It was like and we just made it public but it didn't, it was no organizing around it. I just said this is what we’re doing, and I didn’t ask the board or anything, I just did it. That’s my memory of it anyway. But, so what we said was everytime a protestor shows up somebody’s gonna give us money, and they did. And they did, like we made, and within, well over like, whatever the, well my memory is we made $5,000. Back then nothing to sneeze at right? Monica Bennett SHORE Centre Counseling Coordinator - 1984, Executive Director - 1988-1989

I just read a research paper on ethics and it was about Ontario’s Sex-ed curriculum and the history of revision in that and I thought that was kind of interesting. Maybe I'll just read a couple of sentences for you here. I'm just looking at it now. Um so, when the new version of the sex-ed curriculum was published in 2010. It took only two days for public outrage sparked by Charles McVety, a prominent evangelical Christian leader to prompt the government to withdraw the proposed curriculum. And then in late 2012, Kathleene Wynne, made sex ed revision essential plank in her election platform. So she gets a strong majority and they revive the 2010 research and the extent of stakeholder consultation and they did further revision to implement in 2015 and some people withdrew their children from school leaving some classes nearly empty for weeks so people were calling this, her gay agenda forcing a perverted sexual curriculum on parents and children. So Doug Ford then decided that a strong election message to get him in would be to repeal the curriculum which he did and her and Wynne’s party was reduced to seven seats. And then within weeks they reverted to the 1998 curriculum but under pressure from teachers union’s they cobbled together an interim curriculum that was kind of a hybrid of the 98’ and 2010, so absent was any mention of homosexuality, anal intercourse, masturbation, queer and trans identities or other non-binary gender identities. Um and Ford started a snitch line to parents, uh for parents, to report teachers who were non-compliant. Um… so in 2019, with little fanfare the ministry of education implemented the new version of the curriculum modeled closely on the 2015 version. This time there was very little public backlash because Ford assured parents they had the right to remove children from classes when these topics contraded the belief or being taught. So in fact they end up with a curriculum that’s pretty much close to Kathleen Wynne’s but they did it in, in a more politically astute way. Joy Roberts

I joined Planned Parenthood when Monica left. At the time the protestors were really really active. But they were there every single day and my way of surviving with them was to speak to them. I um… It was not something encouraged but at the same time you’re walking past these people each and everyday. There has to be some, some give and take. Um but it’s interesting. Do you think I can come up with the name of the main lead guy? It’s just pushed down inside me somewhere. He’s the guy that I was in court against. I had police interviews with him in the room, and he was told by the police not to say anything demeaning to me in any way. And one day he called me just a plain baby murderer, period and simple. And the biggest policeman I’ve ever seen in my life picked him up bodily and heaved him out the door. Like, but I still had to walk back to the office and I had no idea where this guy was. It was a tremendous amount of extra nervous energy that went into all of that. And then I had a leave of absence granted for a month, to go to Australia and four days before I left, my car was destroyed in my driveway and my immediate reaction was ok the right to lifers are here. I still don’t know, the police didn’t do anything about it, other than to say well it’s part of the police game to flip a car like yours, well big deal you know? So there were restraining orders placed on the protesters. They were just stay away from the doorway of Planned Parenthood, but when I returned, the day I returned, the lead protestor was there before I got to work and said, uh, Burna did you have a nice time in Australia? It was not a good feeling at all because how did he know what my movements were? Burna Wilton Executive Director - 1989-1995

Donna and Hugh did a lot of that (sexual health education) publicly and I heard a few stories about some of the comments that went on in the classes and I think you handle yourself pretty well… from what I gather. Um, yeah so… (I heard that you guys were Donna Hugh.- Catherine) Donna Hugh yeah, (yess–Donna), well there was, yeah there was (one of the kids coined that - Donna), did they? (Yeah-Donna), (Oh so it came from the youth that you were working with?-Catherine), Did it come from the youth you were working with? Donna Hugh? (Yeah, I think so, yeah, yeah it’s great - Donna), (So great!- Catherine), I think, I think it was probably, from what I gather, I mean these stories I’ve heard over the years it was probably for some of them the first time they’ve ever heard somebody else and themselves, youth, talking about sexuality and seeing visually how to approach it. Um, with um the condoms issue, and how to approach that and there has been many stories about, Donna would display, how that was to be, you know? Applied. And you know that kind of thing. And there’s actually photos I’ve seen, I’ve seen photos of her actually doing a display um somewhere I don't know. Somewhere they must be here somewhere so I’m sure you don’t want to put that on your website but you never know, it’s all part of the education. Bob Betham, partner of Donna Randall - Education Coordinator and Executive Director 1996-1999

It’s not a comfortable topic for people to talk about. I think that while in Waterloo Region we are very, you know, innovative, with the universities, and with the tech sector, and all of those sorts of things, I still think it’s a fairly conservative area. I mean we have a large Mennonite population in our surrounding areas. And then, a history that I think leads towards not, that people don’t easily want to make change. And so, I think that if you throw in all a lot of those factors, I think that it’s hard to make sexual health a priority because not everybody sees it as a priority. And I think that one of the issues really, is with our government, and that we have so many layers of government, and who’s responsible for what. So we have the Region who is responsible for health, and then we have the province that is responsible for healthcare, and so I find that you’re often having to go one place for one answer and one place for another answer. It would just be so much simpler if we only had to go to one place, and those pieces were coordinated because it doesn’t seem to be coordinated. Jane Arnold Board of Directors - 2018-present

On the surgical abortion side this is always one of those things where you know I think as I was growing up and I think over the last decade or so, people are like yeah we have surgical abortions, great. You can get an abortion in Canada… But can you? Is like the really big question. Uh in Waterloo Region you’re only gonna have one up to 14 weeks and they have a lot of restrictions so if you have particular healthcare pieces around that, if you have a BMI over a certain limit, based on their requirements, all of these reasons will send you out of town, still. So again in 14 weeks is like pretty low for a lot of people, and a lot of the folks may not know, all though most abortions do take place in the 1st trimester, statistically. Um, but you know we end up sending people to London quite often. If they’re going to London they have to go for a consult on one day, in person, and then they’ll have to go back another day in a week or two for two day appointment, stay overnight, you have to stay near the hospital. Um, and that’s just logistically so difficult for a lot of our clients, you know, financially. Sometimes they have other kids, and again time off work, like it’s so complicated or we send people to Toronto as well. So it’s just when you really stop and think about it, and it’s so funny because you know, I obviously do this work everyday, but if I pull back from it and think about it too much, it is so unreasonable to me, that you just can’t get an abortion in town. TK Pritchard Educator 2015-2017 Executive Director 2020-present

We aren’t really allowed to talk about abortion in schools, there’s a very small part in the high school curriculum that talks about pregnancy options but, the curriculum, the way it’s written, doesn’t really give us the option to talk about abortion or mention it earlier, even though people ask us. And so if you’ve never spoken of abortion and then you get to university and people are talking about it, of course you don’t feel comfortable talking about it, right? It’s considered like such an “adult topic”, and you’re like I don’t know this is like a really normal thing that happens. Some of those kids their parents will be having abortions, like it’s just, you come back and you talk about like abortion, menstruation, miscarriage is another great example of like people don’t talk about miscarriage. And like how many kids will be in school, and their parents are actually actively experiencing miscarriage, or they themselves, when they’re a little older, might experience miscarriage. And suddenly you’re like thrown into adulthood, having never or very limited conversations about these topics, and you’re just supposed to be fine with them? Like of course you’re not, right? Like that’s, it’s so hard that we don’t have any foundational conversations, for people to normalize these types of health experiences, and then yeah as an adult, you’re like yeah of course there’s a ton of stigma if you’re told you’re never supposed to talk about these. And now you are, but you don’t have any information about it. TK Pritchard Educator 2015-2017 Executive Director 2020-present

When I was there they were working on an app and like a website, where no matter where you were… So it started in Waterloo but then no matter where you were in Canada you could put in like your address and then it would um populate like where the available services are for you if you were looking to access abortion and that didn’t exist at all before SHORE tried to do this, and just that impact alone, um for people, and people everywhere in Canada is huge because so many people will ask questions online that they’re afraid to ask in person, even to like their family doctor so that is such a gift of information that SHORE was able to provide. Caroline Dutka Volunteer 2016-2019 Donor 2016-1019 Fundraising committee SHORE50 - 2021-2022

When I started we were represented by conservative MP’s so we had Stephen Woodworth in Kitchener Centre and we had Harold Albrecht out in the townships and so those are probably two of the most anti-choice MP’s. Um, in Canada at the time they were regularly putting forward anti-choice legislation, attending anti choice events, promoting anti choice events and so um, you know there’s often media articles about different proposals they were putting forward and we were able to kind of combat that as much as we could in the media. Over time um there was also the re-election of Donald Trump uh in the United States and that um changed the climate a lot for us. We saw a groundswell of support from the broader community in a way we haven’t before and so I think when that happened a lot of people decided that now was the time to take a side. To stand up and actually be open about their support for us, I think in the past we have had a lot of communities support us and organization but it wasn’t necessarily safe, um, for people to come out and say that they were on our side that they did support, um abortion rights, women’s rights, reproductive justice. We had a lot of quiet supporters in the community who you know, when you were at events they would say you know we got your back don’t worry, but they wouldn’t necessarily come out and say that. With the election of Donald Trump everything sort of changed and people were very open that they supported women’s rights, they supported abortion rights. Um, and they were a lot more political about it. Lyndsey Butcher Board Member - 2012-2014 Executive Director - 2015-2019

So I think it’s critically important that everyone be provided, comprehensive, accessible, inclusive sexual health education and during my time at SHORE is when the controversies around sex-ed were going on and where they were bringing in a new curriculum and it ended up being shelved for a number of years and it was attempted to be brought back in. And again it was shelved, and there was a lot of uproar over that in the community just about misunderstandings and about especially around younger children and what would be taught to younger children so I think, I think overtime people have started to understand the role of sexual health. That it’s not just about sexual activity or safer sex but it’s about understanding your body. Um, understanding consent. Understanding healthy relationships, understanding gender identity, sexual orientation, um and just being comfortable in your own skin. And that, those types of concepts you know, should be introduced young. And that we do want children to believe you know that their body belongs to them the right to consent, to embody autonomy um and so that was a huge part of my time at SHORE was just try to get that message out to the community. That kids do have a right to know about their bodies, about the names of their body parts, just basic things like that. Um, but it is something that I think from the very beginning SHORE / Planned Parenthood um have been on the forefront of our community where their ensuring that this was available to kids and to young adults, and to… I mean we even have seen news programs so um it’s something that is sort of core to our work. Lyndsey Butcher Board Member - 2012-2014 Executive Director - 2015-2019

When we talk about our sexuality, we’re talking about who we are. In like, our sexuality is one way it gets expressed, and as many different facets right? But it's just about our beautiful, gentle, vulnerable selves that are inside us and that’s what I see. When I do this other education piece that isn’t about political change… I mean ultimately it’s all about political change. I feel like I'm doing this work because I don’t think political change happens unless we are personally transformed first, right? And so that’s what I think the best sexuality education will do, will help you help individuals become transformed. And transformation to me means becoming more of who you are, recognizing who you are. Like because… Society just layers on all kinds of things that we just have to like- strip away from ourselves in order to let whoever we are shine. If that shining is that political stuff that’s great or if it’s like- reverence for the beauty in a flower or your cat’s eyes, or whatever, you know? Or whatever it is, that’s what I hope our youth will also find out. That they also can also be vulnerable. That we can create a space where they can be vulnerable. Monica Bennett SHORE Centre Counselling Coordinator - 1984, Executive Director - 1988-1989

Well, I would like that piece that is the automatic go to. That “it’s all about abortion.” So, that one to be taken off the table. And it is such engrained common knowledge because of a very vocal blueprint piece repeating that message. As Trump has taught us, we only need to repeat something five times and it’s fact. So I would hope that SHORE could get the message out that we’re about, (We’ve been trying to get this message out forever) that we’re a much bigger connected piece of information. But, it would be so nice if it were not that one issue, that’s going up, and going up, and going up. What do I see for SHORE? Wouldn’t it be nice if we’re just part of a sexual health, healthy society? So that, I won’t say, didn’t need something like SHORE but, that it’s rolled into a bigger piece. So that we’re not so easily targeted. Burna Wilton Executive Director - 1989-1995

We’re bound to become more, kind of, holistic. If you look at where we’re at now, in a bigger picture - humans, with all this stuff going on. Socially we’ve got Black Lives Matter, we’ve got #metoo, we’ve got First Nations issues, we’ve got the environment, and there’s a whole lot of things we’re trying to deal with and I sort of see that is sort of something, ideally would be holistic. We concern ourselves with a lot of things in our decision-making. So that’s bound to extend to sexuality as well. My guess is, we may see the types of relationships diversify a lot more and gender diversify a lot more. It’s already diversifying a lot. Somebody who I believe still lives in Waterloo, Lyn McGuiness, used to show up in a men's conference, saying that Lyn knew a lot about different genders. Studied First Nations stuff and would get a lot. I think First Nations - some of them had 16 different genders which is kind of interesting. So I think we can see maybe a situation where people can be more who they are and, in that, do something holistic. Hugh Cameron Board of Directors 1989-1994 Educator 1995-1999

I just want things like accessing reproductive healthcare, like abortion to be a routine part of accessing healthcare and I want sex-ed to be a normal part of the curriculum in schools. If we worked SHORE Centre out of jobs that would be fine. It’ll never happen, but you know, if it became like regular care that people could just access. I think like realistically what could happen in the Region, I think that you know that there is a lot of opportunity for us to be a Region with excellence and expertise in reproductive healthcare, obviously like shore centre has a lot of that without the resources and so I think you know… obviously us better resource could make a big difference but, you know, we have large hospitals capable of doing a lot more than the surgical abortion space than they are. I don’t want to keep on sending people to London and Toronto to access basic healthcare. I want the Region's… you know, in-town abortion services, to reflect the size of what our region is at this point. So, I think, you know, looking at our hospitals wanting to be like world world class hospitals… Well abortion care needs to be part of that and better reproductive health care all along. TK Pritchard Educator 2015-2017 Executive Director 2020-present

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