"Lobby" and "advocacy" become bad words in Ottawa as funding for the Status of Women takes huge hit
At the eleventh hour, much to the dismay of the Conservative lobby, Trudeau-era women’s advocacy group Status of Women Canada received their funding… sort of.
Five million has been shaved off the Status’s funding, almost 40 per cent of their total operating budget. The cuts will have devastating effects and major reorganization is now in the works.
The Conservative lobby is currently leading what Irene Mathyssen, MP for London-Fanshawe and NDP Critic for the Status of Women, has labelled the "de-fanging of the women’s movement."
"What we are sensing is that this review will have rules that will make it absolutely impossible for advocacy, for anything political, to happen. Groups have already been advised that if they are applying [for funding] they should remove words like ‘lobbying’ and ‘advocacy’ from the applications," says Mathyssen. "This is a very clear effort to de-politicize the women’s movement, and according to the same sources it will be charitable groups that will be given the nod in the new regime."
Since the spring, right-wing women’s group REAL Women Canada and various bloggers on the same team have been grabbing headlines and lobbying loudly to dismantle the Status. The anti-feminist REAL Women’s platform, according to their website, is "to promote, secure and defend legislation which upholds the Judeo-Christian understanding of marriage and family life." According to Gwen Landolt, national vice-president of REAL Women Canada, the group based in Western Canada gets their funding from "grassroots support – we only survive by way of membership support and donations."
According to Landolt, the Status "only funds ideologically feminist women’s groups and not others."
"We would like the whole Status of Women to be abandoned or disbanded because it really is not representative of [women today] and it’s very bad and discriminatory," says Landolt. She argues that if her own group can have 55,000 members and fund its own agenda, why can’t the women’s movement? If REAL Women had their way, issues like abolishing gay marriage would take precedence over some of the issues being addressed by the Status, says Landolt. "I think that [there are other issues that] mean more to people than pay equity does."
Says Alison Dewar, treasurer of the National Association of Women and the Law, a group backed by the Status, "I think that probably Mrs. Landolt and [her organization] view discrimination in a different way from us. We are an equality-seeking and an equality-enhancing group. What we do is we fight for the rights of the most vulnerable and the most discriminated against in our country." As for funding, it would be close to impossible to be member-driven, says Dewar, especially given that the group’s main constituents are vulnerable and disenfranchised women.
Mathyssen also fears the shift towards funding charitable organizations over advocacy groups could cause setbacks for all women. "Though charitable groups do very important things, they don’t know how to fight back – by the time they realize the political implications of what they wanted to pursue it would be game over." Though the Conservatives "pretended that they had abandoned more extreme ideologies," says Mathyssen, she believes their kinder, gentler face "is just a mask for something very, very ugly underneath."
Ultimately, Mathyssen believes that the Tories fundamentally see the Status as a "nuisance," and that in principle it goes "against [...] basic Conservative ideology."
Last week Mathyssen accused Heritage Minister Bev Oda, the minister in charge of the Status of Women Canada, of "not understanding her portfolio." As far as Mathyssen is concerned, with Harper giving Oda so much to deal with at once – between Heritage and the Status – he is seeking to keep women’s groups away from more substantive issues, and Oda occupied.
6 comments
I got to the meat of the article and came to the conclusion that accoring to Mathyssen the women’s advocacy groups are being tamed because it is against the ideology of the ruling party. And it is a pity because those groups are in Canada which has made great strides in equality between the sexes and I am not referring only to the damn pay equity situation. So Harper and his bunch are up to their dirty deeds by slashing funding to those groups and by calling them a nuisance? Here, here..maybe its time to really bring the consercative moinority leadership down by throwing this issue in their faces together with their wanting to scrap the gun registry when guns are already available to potential killers, along with their wanting to re-vitalize Christian marriage values…blaaah!
For crying out loud, when will the right realize that “feminism” is simply the radical notion that women are people too? (no, that’s not from me, I read that line somewhere actually).
Feminism is simply the idea that women, as people (just as men, or English-speaking folks, or short people, or hipsters, or whatever), have equal rights and equal responsibilities. Or _should_ have equal rights and such, anyway.
But is anyone really surprised at Harper’s bunch is trying to kill the progressist women’s groups? “Con-ser-va-tive”, people, the name pretty much says it all! They are only interested in maintaining the status quo, i.e. “keeping power in the hands of the ones who already have it” (rich White guys from the right).
Jeeze, Canada has made so many progresses on social issues, I can’t believe that the population voted such a regressive party in (don’t look at me, I vote Bloc for its position on the environment and social issues!).
Even when the government changes (as it always does), there might already have been too much damage done by the Conservatives to correct. We can’t progress as a people, only to be thrown back a hundred years by dinosaurs like Harper… Or we shouldn’t, anyway.
I am quite happy that the federal government is reducing the budget of this group. This organization is a dinosaur and should not receive any funding.
Everyone is aware that there is discrimination in our society and some of it is directed toward women. However women also make up half of the population thus making them half responsible for who sits in the House of Commons.
Take a look at the organization’s website. The bulk of the budget is spent on a category called “Build knowledge and organizational capacity on gender equality” 22 million! What a waste. How can you spend that much money on issues that half the population should be aware of.
The money spent in this department is better spent anywhere else including not taking it from the taxpayer in the first place. Half the time that helps out women too.
Wow, Harper and his cronies strike again! What won’t they do to push and promote their own conservative, reactionnary agenda? Defanging Status by cutting their funding will go a long way towards shutting them up – or so they seem to think anyway. As for the pro-Harper group REAL Women, they’re anything but representative of the views of the real average every-day woman, maybe the woman of a by-gone era but their antiquated right-wing ideals are so out of touch with reality, not unlike Harper’s own platform, that it’s almost laughable really…
I’d like to think everyone in this modern day and age is aware of the the problem of gender inequality. I’d used to think that must be the case. Everyone I knew seemed to know about it. But groups like the REAL women prove that isn’t true. if the REAL women choose to believe in “traditional” values, I suppose that’s their right, but as long as the percentage of women in positions of power doesn’t match the percentage of women in the population, so long as women can be paid less for the same amount of work, and so long as women can be discriminated against in any way because of gender, it is clearly still an issue. Now, on the other hand, it’s hard to think of the government cutting funding to lobby groups as a bad thing. Doesn’t the government spend too much? But beore I can condone this move, I’d like to know where this money is going. Is this money that is being cut actually going to charity groups? Is it paying down the debt? Or is it going to pay for all the hours and material wasted on re-opening the same-sex marriage debate?
It is indeed unfortunate that in all the kerfuffle about the cuts to Status of Women Canada two things have never caught the eye of the press. First, the manner in which they cuts were instituted. There was no consultation process and many were caught unawares. And, secondly, the rules of the game were changed-’for profit’ groups are now able to compete for the same shrinking amount of funds. The whole concept of a level playing field for citizens is now in jeopardy.
And if advocacy is a no-no, however are we going to be able to approach our own government when we have concerns?