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STATUS OF WOMEN
OPENS ITS DOORS
By C. Gwendolyn Landolt
National Vice President
REAL Women of Canada
On April 4, 2006, REAL Women wrote to the MPs and especially
to the Minister for the Status of Women, Bev Oda, raising
our documented objections about the discriminatory practices
of the Status of Women, as well as those of the House of Commons
Standing Committee on the Status of Women. Both these organizations
support feminist only groups. (See REALity May / June, 2006,
p. 12.)
We had expected a reasonable response from
a Minister representing a conservative government. Imagine
our surprise, therefore, when we received a letter dated June
2, 2006 signed by Bev Oda, in which she stated:
This government is committed to promoting
women’s human rights and eliminating barriers for women.
Canada has made some progress in advancing equality for women
through our constitution and laws. However, there is still
work to do to make sure women can enjoy full equality in their
day to day lives.
As Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status
of Women, I will continue to work with organizations to attain
concrete results in achieving full equality for women.
We were furious. We wrote to Ms Oda on June
8, 2006 stating that her letter was deeply offensive to our
organization in that she had either ignored and/or dismissed
the main points of our letter of April 4, 2006. We went on
to state:
Your statement in your letter that your department
“will continue to work with organizations to attain concrete
results in achieving full equality” clearly implies that
your department will continue with its reprehensible policies
of consulting with, promoting and funding only feminist organizations
and continue to discriminate against all other women’s
grass root organizations.
Surely, it is reasonable that the Status of
Women cease its discriminatory practices and policies and
represent all women in Canada from their various perspectives,
not just that of the special interest group of feminists.
This was the main point of our letter which you have failed
to address.
On June 15, 2006, we wrote to Prime Minister
Stephen Harper, stating:
Ms Oda’s response to our concerns was
deeply offensive to us. It is apparent that Ms Oda has ignored
our concerns about the apparent bias of the Status of Women.
The implication is clear that the Status of Women will continue
with the policy established under the Liberal government which
is to consult and fund feminist organizations exclusively,
in the search for “concrete results” in achieving
equality.
One would conclude from her correspondence
that the change in government on January 23rd has not in any
way altered the policies of the Status of Women and that the
policies of the Liberal party are to continue on their feminist
trajectory.
We had a prompt response to our letters to
Ms Oda and Prime Minister Harper. On Friday, June 30, 2006,
a phone call was received by REAL Women President, Laurie
Geschke, followed by a letter inviting her to attend a meeting
on July 5th, 2006 with Ms Oda, together with representatives
from 15 other women’s groups to discuss the issue of
economic independence for women. Travel expenses, hotel and
meals were to be covered by the Status of Women.
Representatives from some of the other women’s
groups in attendance at that meeting included the National
Council of Women, Alliance des Femmes Françaises Hors
de Quebec, Canadian Women in Communications and Media; Canadian
Business Professional Women’s Club; Canadian Women’s
Foundation; National Organization of Visible Minority Women,
Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Standing Committee
in Increasing Women in Politics.
The demands of these feminist groups were
as expected, such as more gender based analyses (GBA) [read:
feminist analysis] for government bureaucrats, court staffs,
judges and lawyers, etc: more employment equity to place more
women on corporate boards, more government funding of women’s
groups, more government funded child care, improved maternity
leave, including for self-employed women, gender specific
English as a Second Language (ESL) etc.
In her presentation to the group, REAL Women National President,
Laurie Geschke, provided some background on REAL Women and
mentioned that enforcing quotas in business and government
was not acceptable. She also mentioned the importance of raising
the personal exemptions for a spouse at home, which should
be claimed on the working spouse’s income tax return.
This would provide the family, of which women are a major
part, with economic independence, i.e. more disposable income.
Minister Bev Oda then inquired whether our organization supported
income splitting to which, of course, Laurie responded in
the affirmative.
Minister Oda did ask at least three of the
organizations present “for the results of their studies
for which they’d received grant monies” from the
Status of Women. None of them had documented their “results”.
Minister Oda then requested a letter from
us, if we had further comments to make. REAL Women will follow
up on this.
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