A/HRC/41/42/Add.1 police and Crown prosecutor and spousal abuse policies to ensure that spousal violence is treated as seriously as stranger violence, including regarding the enforceability of protection orders.12 27. A main issues of concern is the lack of a national definition of family and domestic violence and the lack of a national legal framework on violence against women and domestic violence based on women’s international human rights standards, as enshrined in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and presented in detail in the Committee’s general recommendations No. 19 (1992) on violence against women and No. 35 (2017) on gender-based violence against women, updating general recommendation No. 19. 28. The provincial and territorial governments have primary jurisdiction in the administration and delivery of health-care services. The Canada Health Act, the federal health-care insurance legislation, requires them to provide coverage for medically necessary hospital, physician and surgical-dental services to their eligible residents. With respect to the protection of sexual and reproductive health and rights, the Special Rapporteur notes that, in compliance with the 1988 Supreme Court of Canada decision R. v. Morgentaler, there is no criminalization of abortion in Canada. Access to it, however, is uneven nationwide. 29. Canada has 14 jurisdictions for employment legislation, each with its own approach and some with little or no language on harassment and violence. Regulations on workplace violence therefore might not include all forms of violence, such as psychological harassment and bullying or domestic violence when it affects the workplace. Much health and safety legislation is framed around the reporting of incidents of violence, which makes it challenging to capture more subtle forms of harassment such as hostile workplaces, or the intersection of different forms of harassment for women with multiple and intersecting identities. Such legislation does not always apply to all workers, including precarious and part-time workers, workers in the informal sector and migrant workers (including migrant domestic worker), in which women are overrepresented. 30. The Special Rapporteur notes the introduction in 2017 of bill 65, which amended the Canada Labour Code to create a framework for enhancing prevention, protection and response to harassment and violence in federally regulated workplaces and extended the provisions to include parliamentary workers. In addition, recent changes were made to the Code by introducing a new 10-day leave for victims of family violence (of which 5 days are paid). 31. In June 2017, the Government, through the Minister for Women and Gender Equality, launched a strategy to prevent and address gender-based violence. The Special Rapporteur also welcomes the report of the Minister on the 2016 engagement process for the strategy, which includes data collection among the key priority actions. 32. The aforementioned strategy – based on prevention, support for survivors and their families and the promotion of responsive legal and justice systems – is mainly project oriented, focusing on specific areas and lacking a human rights-based holistic legal framework and comparable data collection for all forms of gender-based violence against women in all jurisdictions. 33. The Special Rapporteur also highlights that there is a need for a more comprehensive and holistic national action plan on violence against women. B. Institutional framework: national machinery and independent institutions 34. After the Royal Commission on the Status of Women presented its landmark report in 1970, Canada appointed in 1971 a minister on the status of women, followed in 2015 by the first Minister for the Status of Women, to ensure that government decisions include 12 6 See www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/fv-vf/laws-lois.html.