Harper And His Neocons: Not Good For Women's Rights
I now yield the floor in favor of a straight-to-the-point article explaining why Harper and his Harpies constitute a danger to the rights of women - as if we didn't know already (after all, what else can you expect from primitive minded theocons?), but just in case there remains some ladies out there who were not yet "in the know" and consequently considering voting for Mini Leader:
Harper's attacks on women's rights
Women have reason to fear another Harper government.
by Linda Silver Dranoff
Women have a lot to fear from a Harper government, whether he gets a majority or a minority. The polls show that in battleground ridings across Canada, the Conservative party leads among women voters. How can this be? How can we have forgotten?
Just because Harper's stylists and public relations advisors have tried to soften Harper's tough image by putting smiles on his face and sweaters on his back does not change the fact that women's interests have suffered at the hands of Stephen Harper and his government's misguided policies in the two years since he has been Prime Minister. Everything he has done indicates that women's interests will continue to suffer if he is re-elected.
Soon after taking office, Harper broke the promise he made during the 2006 election campaign to "take concrete and immediate measures... to ensure that Canada fully upholds its commitments to women." By a simple stroke of the pen (and without parliamentary involvement), he removed "the pursuit of equality" from the mandate of Status of Women Canada (SWC).
Before that, SWC's role was to protect the equality interests of women in government policies and programs. Harper ruled that SWC could no longer fund any organization that did research, advocacy or lobbying to promote women's equality. Then he financially crippled their ability to do the part of the job he had not excised, by cutting $5 million from a $13 million budget.
Twelve of the agency's 16 regional offices were closed. Any available funding was short-term and for projects; there was no core funding and no funding for administrative costs.
Many organizations lost their financial underpinnings. Because advocacy was no longer eligible, the National Association of Women and the Law was a casualty. For more than 30 years, NAWL's lawyers did advocacy and research to support legal improvements for women. Under Harper's government, it had to close its office and terminate its paid staff.
The Court Challenges program, in place since the early 1980's, was another fatality. This program subsidized test cases to interpret and clarify the1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It financed some of the work of the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund ("LEAF"), founded in 1985, which has intervened in over 150 constitutional equality cases on a wide range of issues including violence against women, sexual assault, workplace inequities, socio-economic rights and reproductive freedoms.
(Keep reading ...)
Women have reason to fear another Harper government.
by Linda Silver Dranoff
Women have a lot to fear from a Harper government, whether he gets a majority or a minority. The polls show that in battleground ridings across Canada, the Conservative party leads among women voters. How can this be? How can we have forgotten?
Just because Harper's stylists and public relations advisors have tried to soften Harper's tough image by putting smiles on his face and sweaters on his back does not change the fact that women's interests have suffered at the hands of Stephen Harper and his government's misguided policies in the two years since he has been Prime Minister. Everything he has done indicates that women's interests will continue to suffer if he is re-elected.
Soon after taking office, Harper broke the promise he made during the 2006 election campaign to "take concrete and immediate measures... to ensure that Canada fully upholds its commitments to women." By a simple stroke of the pen (and without parliamentary involvement), he removed "the pursuit of equality" from the mandate of Status of Women Canada (SWC).
Before that, SWC's role was to protect the equality interests of women in government policies and programs. Harper ruled that SWC could no longer fund any organization that did research, advocacy or lobbying to promote women's equality. Then he financially crippled their ability to do the part of the job he had not excised, by cutting $5 million from a $13 million budget.
Twelve of the agency's 16 regional offices were closed. Any available funding was short-term and for projects; there was no core funding and no funding for administrative costs.
Many organizations lost their financial underpinnings. Because advocacy was no longer eligible, the National Association of Women and the Law was a casualty. For more than 30 years, NAWL's lawyers did advocacy and research to support legal improvements for women. Under Harper's government, it had to close its office and terminate its paid staff.
The Court Challenges program, in place since the early 1980's, was another fatality. This program subsidized test cases to interpret and clarify the1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It financed some of the work of the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund ("LEAF"), founded in 1985, which has intervened in over 150 constitutional equality cases on a wide range of issues including violence against women, sexual assault, workplace inequities, socio-economic rights and reproductive freedoms.
(Keep reading ...)
Good article, Mentarch. Thanks for posting it.
ReplyDeleteI really don’t understand why some women (other than those religious fundamentalists) still support Harper. I don’t know many, and of those, they give me vague reasons - Dion’s English is bad, they just don’t like Dion but don’t know why, or well, you know, conservatives aren’t socialists.
It’s not only women who will lose heavily under a Harper gov., even a minority. This guy has contempt for nearly everyone, and will do even more to silence dissenting voices.
I have spoken with some people and noticed myself that there has been an attempt to shut some of our blogs down. Sorry to be vague, but I don’t want anything I say to cost anyone their job.
Maybe you noticed the same thing.
With Day’s attempts to have complete access to telecom records, without a warrant, it would be pretty easy to hit us through our jobs.
Tight race, eh? I don’t drink often, but I’ll have the tequila at hand Tuesday evening.
Happy Thanksgiving! Damn, I hope the next one is better!
900ftJ:
ReplyDelete"I really don’t understand why some women (other than those religious fundamentalists) still support Harper. I don’t know many, and of those, they give me vague reasons - Dion’s English is bad, they just don’t like Dion but don’t know why, or well, you know, conservatives aren’t socialists."
I'm beginning to wonder if these same women are also among those who "adulate" Sarah "Stillson" Palin, the demagogue poseur ...
"I have spoken with some people and noticed myself that there has been an attempt to shut some of our blogs down. Sorry to be vague, but I don’t want anything I say to cost anyone their job.
Maybe you noticed the same thing."
Woah! My curiosity is now piqued and demands more details! Please, if you want to, email me about this ... this enquiring mind wants to know.
"With Day’s attempts to have complete access to telecom records, without a warrant, it would be pretty easy to hit us through our jobs."
Yup. That's the point I've been trying to hammer home again and again and again here at APOV ... including in a post I wrote just yesterday ("Domestic Spying: You Were Warned").
(sigh)
"Tight race, eh? I don’t drink often, but I’ll have the tequila at hand Tuesday evening."
Same here - although it will be beer for me (don't want too big a hangover when I go to work the morning after) ;-)
"Happy Thanksgiving! Damn, I hope the next one is better!"
Right back atcha - and hear, hear!
How can we continue to allow this to happen! A provincial party that wants to break up our country has enough say to stop a majority government from forming. Although I am a conservative, I understand that people either love them or hate them. However, it is not right that the majority of Canadians are going to be voting for the conservatives, but the Bloc can secure enough seats to stop a majority government.
ReplyDelete-------------------------------
Angelinjones
ethical seo
Well, considering that other "regional parties" have existed before (like, say, the Reform Party), I am not sure what your point is here when you boldly declare "we can not allow this to continue".
ReplyDeleteIt's called democracy - it's not always pretty and neat, or palatable, but there it is nonetheless.
We just have to learn to live with such things, including at bettering ourselves in this matter ...
In any case, the possibilities that the BQ actually ends up with a "majority" borders on the impossible - hence, you are "scaring" yourself over nothing.
How about instead addressing the actual issues confronting us these days and defend the policies of the party which you support in this regard?