Menstrual products already offered at Nanaimo facilities will now be more easily accessible. (Pixabay)

By Spencer Sterritt

feminine hygiene

Councillors vote to increase awareness about available menstrual products in City facilities

Feb 17, 2021 | 4:28 PM

NANAIMO — Anyone in need of a menstrual product but caught without at a City of Nanaimo facility will soon know exactly where to turn.

Councillors voted unanimously to increase signage at City facilities reassuring anyone in need they could receive what they need at the front desk.

The motion on Wednesday, Feb. 17 came after a previous motion during the finance and audit committee meeting to spend $71,500 on a pilot project installing dispensers in female and universal washrooms was defeated.

Coun. Erin Hemmens brought forward the second motion, stressing she understood the desire to more widely offer feminine hygiene products but calling the original motion “overkill.”

“If these products are available at our facilities already, I wonder if we can spend $100 instead of $71,000 and have some well-designed posters put in all our public facilities saying if you require menstrual products you can discreetly ask at the front counter and we’ll provide them for you.”

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All councillors around the table spent time in the discussion saying they believed menstrual products should be offered as freely as toilet paper.

Coun. Don Bonner, who brought forward the original motion, said it’s a matter of equality through equity.

“This product should be available in all washrooms everywhere, it should just be a no-brainer. Why wouldn’t it be there?”

A staff report said the pilot project would have cost roughly $20,000 to install the dispensers and $51,000 annually to restock them.

The budget did not include the cost of repairing the dispensers if any are vandalized.

One proposed location at Caledonia Park, where a valuable shower program is run for those experiencing homelessness, already offers menstrual products. So do overnight shelters offering a safe place to stay.

The Nanaimo Women’s Resource Centre was previously handing out menstrual products to those who couldn’t afford them, but their program was curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the City staff report.

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spencer@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @SpencerSterritt