A City Near Toronto Will Have Free Period Products At Public Spots & Here's Where
The products will be available in public washrooms of City-run facilities.
Woman reaching for mental products on a shelf. Right: Condos in Mississauga.
You may not need to buy as many tampons as usual at your drugstore in Mississauga, as the City has announced that free period products will soon be available in a bunch of public spaces.
In a press release on April 20, the City's council announced the approval of a motion to make free menstrual products available in public washrooms of facilities operated by the city.
So, where can you find them?
According to a report from Commissioner of Community Services Jodi Robillos, the free products will be available in at least one washroom of each City-run public space. These facilities include:
- Paramount Fine Foods Centre
- The Courthouse at 950 Burnhamthorpe Rd. W.
- MiWay Transit Terminals locations as directed by MiWay staff
- All standalone library locations and recreational facilities like arenas, golf courses and community centres
- Washrooms in parks that operate year-round that are identified by parks operations
- Various cultural facilities, including the Benares Historic House, Small Arms Inspection Building, Meadowvale Theatre and Bradley Museum
- Civic precinct facilities, including the Living Arts Centre, Mississauga Celebration Square, the Civic Centre and the Central Library
"Nobody should experience period poverty. And as a City, we feel it’s important to ensure that community members have equal access to the services and basic essentials they need when visiting our facilities," Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie said in the press release.
"We’ve researched this, and according to studies, approximately one-third of Canadian women under the age of 25 struggle to afford menstrual products. In Mississauga and Peel Region, there is a noticeable gap to accessing these supplies and we are committed to changing this."
The City says it plans to have free menstrual products at about 100 locations by this fall. The initiative will cost the city around $165,000 to implement for the rest of the year, and $100,000 to operate annually after that.Among those who can get free menstrual products are students in Ontario after the province announced a partnership with Shoppers Drug Mart in October of 2021 that would see 6 million free periods, tampons and other period products given to school boards across the province.