Apparently, R.E.A.L. Women is engaging in a letter campaign to the federal government to have the Status of Women Canada (SWC) disbanded.

Hence letters supporting SWC to the government from feminists and feminist groups are needed at this point. (If you are unfamiliar with R.E.A.L. Women check out their website at: http://www.realwomenca.com)

Below is a copy of an article from the REAL Women website that provides some ideas for where they are going with the new government. We've highlighted one section that you should look at if you don't have time, or the stomach to read the whole sorry thing.

Also below, appears a copy of a National Post column that is no doubt the start of the right wing press to support their agenda.

This would be a good time to write your MP, Stephen Harper, with copies to the Minister Responsible for the Status of Women Canada, and to the Liberal, NDP and the Bloc Québecois critics for Status of Women, in support of increased funding for women's equality-seeking groups! (sample letter appears below)

Let's not let them do to women in the whole country what they've done to us in Ontario!

CONTACT INFO

Find your local MP's contact info at this link:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/house/mpscur.asp?Language=E

Send letter to:

Stephen Harper, Prime Minister

• Email: pm@pm.gc.ca
  
  
• Address:
  Office of the Prime Minister
  80 Wellington Street
  Ottawa K1A 0A2
  
  
• Fax: 613-941-6900

Send copies to:

Bev Oda, Minister Responsible for the Status of Women Canada

• Email: Oda.B@parl.gc.ca
  
  
• Address:
  House of Commons
  Ottawa, Ontario
  K1A 0A6
  
  
• Fax: 613.992.2794

Maria Minna, Critic, Status of Women, Liberal Party

• Email: Minna.M@parl.gc.ca
  
  
• Address:
  House of Commons
  Ottawa, Ontario
  K1A 0A6
  
  
• Fax: 613.996.7942

Irene Mathyssen, Critic, Status of Women, New Democratic Party

• Email: Mathyssen.I@parl.gc.ca
  
  
• Address:
  House of Commons
  Ottawa, Ontario
  K1A 0A6
  
  
• Fax: 613.943.8717

Mme Maria Maurani, Critic, Status of Women, Bloc Québecois

• Email: Mourani.Ma@parl.gc.ca
  
  
• Address:
  House of Commons
  Ottawa, Ontario
  K1A 0A6
  
  
• Fax: 613.992.1932

Sample Letter (added April 25, 2006)

Follow this link to Copy & Paste text of Sample Letter from HTML page

Follow this link to Download Sample Letter as a Word doc

[Date]

Mr. Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
Langevin Block,
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON

Dear Prime Minister Harper:

During the recent federal election, you acknowledged that "Canada still has more to do to meet its international obligations to women's equality". I appreciate this acknowledgement. I am also pleased to learn that you plan to "take concrete and immediate measures, as recommended by the United Nations, to ensure that governments in Canada fully uphold their equality commitments to women(1)." ( http://www.fafia-afai.org/images/Conservative_response_Jan182006.pdf ).

As you may know, this year marks the 25th anniversary of Canada's ratification of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Canada ratified this convention in 1981 with the consent of all provinces and territories . While I recognize that some women in Canada have made progress since then, many women have been left behind.

In this anniversary year, you, as Prime Minister, have a unique opportunity to ensure Canada's full accountability for its human rights commitments to women. To do this, the federal government must sustain both its own efforts to achieve equality for women and its support of non-governmental organizations' contributions.

In particular, you can improve Canada's performance under CEDAW by immediately supporting the Minister of Status of Women to do the following:

• Release the report of the Expert Panel on Accountability Mechanisms for Gender Equality (commissioned before the federal election);
• Provide both project and core-funding to women's equality-seeking groups, including women-centered services;
• Increase the budget of Status of Women Canada (including to the Women's Programme) to $100 million.

These steps are necessary because as you know, women continue to face violence and poverty at highly disproportionate rates. For example, in 2004, 37% of all female homicide victims were killed by a current or former spouse, whereas this was the case with only 4% of male homicide victims(2). As well, in 2003, women employed full-time full-year in Canada earned only 71% of the amount earned by similarly employed males(3). As a consequence, more women than men are poor in Canada. In particular, the poverty rate for female lone parent led families is 38%, compared with just 13% of lone parent families headed by men, and just 7% of non-elderly two-parent families(4). These realities are only aggravated if one is a woman of colour, an immigrant woman, a woman with disabilities and/or an Aboriginal woman.

In addition, with women holding only 21% of the seats in the federal Parliament and 22% in the new federal cabinet, issues of significance to women do not always get the attention they deserve. As a consequence, through the research, analysis and support provided by Status of Women Canada, many women's organizations in Canada are able to play a vital democratic role in gathering and reflecting women's voices and experiences. These voices contribute to the development of just public policy for all Canadians.

As Canada prepares to report back to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in early 2007, it is time for Canada to make meaningful progress on the long-standing recommendations from the UN. Progress in these areas would represent positive steps towards improving Canada's record and advancing women's human rights in Canada.

With your support, Canada can make the 25th anniversary of our ratification of CEDAW an event worth celebrating.

Sincerely,

[Your name and address]

cc: The Honourable Beverley J. Oda, Minister of Status of Women - Oda.B@parl.gc.ca
Ms. Maria Minna, Critic, Status of Women, Liberal Party - Minna.M@parl.gc.ca
Ms. Irene Mathyssen, Critic, Status of Women, New Democratic Party - Mathyssen.I@parl.gc.ca
Mme Maria Maurani, Critic, Status of Women, Bloc Québecois - Mourani.Ma@parl.gc.ca

1 To see the UN's recommendations to Canada please see:
http://www.fafia-afai.org/images/CEDAW_UNrecs_to_Canada_2003.pdf
2 Statistics Canada. 2006. Women in Canada 2005.p.164
3 Statistics Canada. 2006. Women in Canada 2005. p.152
4 Statistics Canada. 2006. Women in Canada 2005. (2003 data). P.144

From the R.E.A.L. Women website

ELECTION 2006 AND ITS AFTERMATH

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The federal election was quite a journey. When it began, on November 29, 2005, the Liberals were in the lead by 8 points. The Liberals were confident, even smug, believing that the Conservatives would stumble and self-destruct during the election campaign. The Liberals predicted all would go well for them, as Canada's natural ruling party which would win yet another (their fifth) straight election. Most agreed with this analysis by Liberal officials. In effect, the Liberal plan was to campaign on the same strategy as they had used in the June 2004 election just 18 months previously. Not a good idea.

REAL Women was one of the few organizations in Canada which predicted last spring that there would be a Liberal defeat in 2006. We were well aware that the political situation had changed dramatically between the 2004 and 2006 elections. We predicted, in fact, a Liberal defeat in 2006 in a press release dated last June 29, 2005. In that press release, we stated:

REAL Women predicts that the Martin Liberals will meet defeat within the year during the next federal election as history repeats itself:

• Liberal arrogance in 1957 over the pipeline led to Liberal defeat
• Liberal arrogance and intensive pork barreling in 1983 led to Liberal defeat
• Liberal arrogance over Bill C-38 and its imposing of the Bill which is unacceptable to the majority of

Canadians, and by compelling the Cabinet and pressuring the Liberal backbenchers to vote for the Bill, plus the Liberals' overt corruption, will lead to its defeat in the early 2006 federal election.

The Liberal government has outlived its usefulness. It will not recover from Bill C-38. Corruption, imposing on Canadians third world politics by way of arrogant top-down government, open bribery to obtain votes, and the manipulation of the Parliamentary process will bring down this despotic Prime Minister and his cronies.

The Liberal government will linger on for a few more months, but its time has run out.

Wait and see.

The many missteps by the Liberals during the campaign, plus the RCMP investigation of possible wrong doing in the Finance Department confirmed one very critical fact - namely that Canadians understood during May and June 2005, when the non-confidence votes and the vote on same-sex marriage were taking place, that there were no moral or ethical considerations that would stop the Liberals in their efforts to hold onto power - power to be held for the benefit of the party and its elites. To pursue this power, the Liberals used every trick, misrepresentation, bribery and other devices at their disposal.

The public knew then that the Liberals genuinely believed that they were entitled to govern as a right. All the bumps in the Liberal road that occurred since then, were not the defining moments but rather, the moments to confirm what Canadians knew about the Liberals and their leader Mr. Martin. In contrast, at the time of the June 2004 election, Mr. Martin had been Prime Minister for only six months. Few at that time had an understanding of Mr. Martin or his policies. By January 2006, they did, and they did not like what they saw. They saw a political leader who would do whatever it took to stay in power. The preservation of power was all that mattered to him.

Liberal MP Belinda Stronach

What is so interesting in retrospect is that the crossing of the floor by MP Belinda Stronach (Newmarket - Aurora ) last May from the Conservative to the Liberal party, which saved the Liberals from defeat in a non-confidence vote at that time, was ironically a decision which saved the Conservative party and led it to its victory in the 2006 election. That is, if the non-confidence vote had been successful in May, the Conservatives would not at that time, have developed their extensive platform which did so much to dispel the alleged "scary" perception of Mr. Harper and the Conservatives. Without this platform on which to campaign in May, Mr. Harper would have been restricted to campaigning only on the issue of Liberal corruption - not enough to turn the voters away from the Liberals, and to demand the change in government that finally occurred in this January's election.

The Road Ahead

The Conservative win of 124 seats means that Canadians will not have to struggle with the projected Liberal policies such as the decriminalization of both prostitution and marijuana and the easing of legal access to the non-medical use of drugs. A Conservative government will also not bring in a euthanasia bill, planned by former Minister of Justice, Irwin Cotler. We must be watchful, however, for anti-life and anti-family private members bills that may gain support from a united opposition of Bloc (51 seats), NDP (29 seats), and Liberals (103 seats).

Another advantage of the Conservative Party win is that the Canadian presence at the UN will change. No longer will Canada work with its former ally, the rabidly anti-Christian left-wing European Union. Instead, hopefully, Canada will, for the most part, be supporting the US government's pro-life / family positions at the UN. Also the Canadian Ambassador to the UN, Allan Rock, will soon be recalled and replaced by an individual more amenable to Conservative policies.

A Conservative government will also begin the difficult work of dismantling the Liberal infrastructure that has served the Liberals so well over the years in perpetuating its left wing policies. These include the funding of feminist only and homosexual organizations, multicultural organizations, and the Court Challenges Programme. The Status of Women and the Law Commission must also be dissolved. The Conservatives must also devise a transparent and honourable method of choosing judges for the courts - there is already one vacancy on the Supreme Court that must be filled immediately.

The road ahead for change will not be easy for the Conservatives. They will have to move very slowly so as not to alarm the electorate. They will also be harangued by the propaganda of the hostile mainstream media.

Further, Mr. Harper spoke the absolute truth on January 18, 2006 when he stated that his government would have to deal with a Liberal-dominated Senate, a liberal judiciary and the civil service.

The 105-seat Senate has 67 Liberals and only 23 Tories - the remaining senators are either Independent or old-time Progressive Conservatives who never approved of the merging of the Alliance Party with the former Conservative Party. The senators are patronage appointments who owe their position for their hard work for their respective parties. Unfortunately, they see their job in the Senate not as being a quiet reflective voice of sober thought, but rather as cheerleaders for their party. Conservative legislation passing through these raucous Liberal senators will not be easy.

Similarly, many in the civil service will not be willing to be neutral despite their claims to the contrary. This is especially true in regard to the Departments of Justice and Foreign Affairs, where feminist/lesbian/homosexuals have dominated the policy decision-making positions for several years. Many of these latter see their role in government as promoting the "progressive" agenda of the left in government policy. They will not quietly depart, but will remain on, if at all possible, to fight any changes in a conservative direction. We can expect their attempting to undermine the Conservatives by such actions, for example, as arranging significant leaks to the media, which will be ready and willing to raise controversy over any changes in the left agenda.

Finally, the Liberal appointed judges will be ready with pens poised to block any affront to their personal philosophies and ideologies by a conservative government. They have no problem, as evidenced by some of the articles in this issue of Reality, in making up so-called "constitutional" reasons to block legislation not to their liking.

Despite these real problems, however, the Conservatives will have to show they can govern and govern well. It will not be easy having regard to the triple obstacles mentioned above. However, the entrenched liberalism in the government and our courts must be shown up for what it is - sheer opportunism and manipulation to promote an agenda for self-serving reasons, not for the benefit of the public.

In this regard, one of the first obligations of the Conservative government will be to reform Parliament so as to return to us once again a truly democratic government - not one controlled by a handful of paid advisors in the Prime Minister's Office.

Although the Conservative Party is forming a minority government, its election marks the beginning of renewal for Canada. The government must judicially and reasonably carry out its responsibilities. If so, a conservative government will be in power for many years to come.

Please let the new Prime Minister know that Canadians want a pro-life/ family Ambassador appointed to the UN. It will mean a great deal to Canadians as well as to the world internationally, if he does so.

Please write to:
The Right. Hon. Stephen J. Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
Langevin Building
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A2

Minister of Foreign Affairs
Department of Foreign Affairs
Lester B. Pearson Building, Tower "A", 10th Floor
125 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0G2

Your MP
House of Commons
Parliament Buildings

National Post Thu 06 Apr 2006 Issues & Ideas A22
Andrea Mrozek

Feminist activism -- paid for by you and me

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It didn't exactly offer the drama of, say, the Persons Case. When Status of Women Canada sent a delegation to last month's 50th UN session on (naturally) the Status of Women, it came armed with a report on the work it does does on behalf of Canadian females. "Canada's national women's machinery has conducted regional, national and online consultations, focusing on accountability issues, including gender equality indicators," read the delegation's statement. Hardly stirring stuff.

But fighting for women's rights using polls and paperwork seems to be what the federal government agency -- with its annual $23-million budget -- is all about these days.

In 1973, the Royal Commission for the Status of Women recommended that women's groups with a feminist outlook receive federal funding to help women achieve equality. Status of Women Canada is the result. But with millions of dollars being spent on these groups every year, Canadians might well wonder what these organizations have achieved.

We've all heard that working women earn only about 76 cents for every dollar their male co-workers take home (a statistic that neatly ignores career transience). But when it comes to fighting for equality, women's groups seem focused on less direct concerns. "The biggest driving issue, as well as accomplishment for us in the past couple of years has been on the issue of child care," says Paulette Senior, CEO of the YWCA, referring to the national day-care program passed by the Liberal government last year.

Unfortunately for the YWCA, which received $153,453 in federal funding in 2003-2004, Canadians recently elected a new government, in large part on a promise to dismantle the proposed national child-care arrangement.

Canadians voted this way despite the $60-million in federal funding that went to pro-feminist groups between 1997 and 2003. That figure comes courtesy of access to information documents obtained by Real Women of Canada, the Ottawa-based group that bills itself as the voice of the "alternative" women's movement.

Gwen Landolt, Real Women's vice-president, believes that while some federally funded women's groups work on issues of domestic violence and equal treatment of women, their purpose is superfluous. Many others, she says, are pursuing a different agenda altogether. After all, demanding low-cost housing specifically for women won't make them any more equal to men.

"They're acting as agents of change to promote their radical feminist agenda," says Landolt. "Their theory is that women are oppressed by the patriarchy."

She insists these groups lack any real grassroots support, but rather are front organizations for governments and unions. Landolt's group, by contrast, was delisted from federal funding in 1996 because officials did not qualify it as an equality-seeking group. Today, Real Women claims 55,000 members.

In a country where abortion is legal, divorce laws are liberalized and the majority of university graduates -- and four of the nine Supreme Court judges -- are women, feminist groups have been forced to find unique reasons for sticking around.

Kathy Marshall is executive director of Womenspace, a group dedicated to empowering women through the use of the Internet. Womenspace received $441,800 in federal cash in 2003-2004, and claims to have 2,000 people on its mailing list. Its most recent success? According to Marshall, it was ensuring that the "language of women's equality rights" was included in something called the "World Summit on the Information Society Declaration."

The Ottawa-based National Association of Women and the Law is using its $474,879 in funding not only to oppose the implementation of misogynist sharia law in Canada, but to fight for "transgendered rights" in the workplace and society.

Meanwhile, visit the Web site of the federally funded National Action Committee on the Status of Women, which calls itself Canada's largest feminist group, and the most recent press release you'll find is one congratulating "the pan-Canadian women's movement" for (apparently) influencing the outcome of the 2004 election. In their June 30, 2004, announcement, NAC directs the victorious Liberals to continue "promoting equality through redistribution policies ... and a new system of proportional representation."

Of course, there's nothing wrong with feminist groups running out of equality issues shifting their focus to campaigning for higher taxes. But since that's essentially the platform of the federal NDP, exactly why are taxpayers funding them to do it? In an age when Canadian women are independent, it seems that Canada's women's groups are more helpless and dependent than ever.

Hold your noses ...

R.E.A.L. Women of Canada Press Release dd Feb 15, 2006

Feminist Shell Game

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For Immediate Release
Ottawa, Ontario February 15, 2006

300 women claiming to represent all Canadian women met on Parliament Hill February 13-14 to supposedly celebrate their work 25 years ago which resulted in the inclusion of S.28 in the Charter of Rights. Section 28 guarantees that the Charter's provisions apply equally for male and female persons. Ironically, Section 28 of the Charter has turned out to be unused, unproved and without effect, according to the decisions brought down by the Supreme Court of Canada on the Charter.

Feminists do not now, and never have had the support of Canadian women. They are a special interest group representing their own ideology only. Moreover, feminist organizations continue to exist in Canada today only because they are funded by the federal Status of Women, without which funding they would collapse, since they have little or no grassroots support.

This week's feminist meeting in Ottawa, true to form, was supported by the Status of Women and other government departments such as the Department of Justice, and government tax-supported agencies such as the National Film Board, Law Commission of Canada, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and International Development Research Centre (IRDC).

The meeting made such unpopular recommendations as championing a universal national day care plan, thereby ignoring the enthusiastic reception given to the $1200 child care support paid directly to all parents equally proposed by the Conservative Party in the recent election.

This meeting also recommended the imposition of proportional representation to ensure that 50 % of elected parliamentarians are of the female gender. Feminists refuse to accept that women vote on the basis of issues, not anatomy. Reasonable voters reject tampering with our democratic process by legislating gender quotas which bypass merit and reward the pre-set criteria chosen by undemocratically appointed committees.

Canadian women from diverse backgrounds and values are not represented by the narrow feminist agenda and reject their undemocratic manipulations. They prefer to work through a democratic system of government.

The federal government must stop funding these unrepresentative women and their irrational policies.

- 30 -
Contact persons:
C. Gwendolyn Landolt Tel: (905) 731-5425, 787-0348, 889-1993
Diane Watts Tel: (613) 236-4001

From the R.E.A.L. Women of Canada newsletter, Issue Nov-Dec 2005

IMPOSING FEMINISM IN CANADA

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Feminists have not been too popular in Canada for a number of years. This is due to the fact that most women do not support their extremist ideology and impractical, often incoherent policies.

Women have moved on to other more important matters, such as balancing their lives between the family and workplace, the care of vulnerable family members because of age or disability, and in general, the health and well-being of their families.

This rejection of feminism does not sit well with feminist Liberal MPs, who are determined to revive feminism in Canada.

In the fall of 2004, they managed to establish the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, supposedly to "study" the problems of women but, in fact, to serve as a platform to spread feminism in Canada.

One of the first decisions made by the Committee was to recommend to the government that it increase funding by 25% to feminist volunteer groups, (See REALity September/October, 2005, p. 14, "Increased Government Funding for Feminist Only Organizations.")

A further step was taken by the Committee when it tabled its second report in the House of Commons in April 2005, in which it recommended that a "gender analysis" be conducted in all federal government departments and agencies on legislation and policies, supposedly to ensure that the equality of women is not detrimentally affected by government decisions. The Committee's proposal means that the government must develop programmes and legislation that are women-specific as well as to:

… ensure that legislation, programmes and policies which are not specifically targeted for women do not inadvertently maintain or exacerbate any equality gap.

In practical terms, the purpose of this proposal is to ensure that all government decisions are subject to feminist overview and approval so that the feminist ideology will be integrated across the country.

This is not the first time however, that feminists have tried to impose "gender analysis" in Canada.

Ten years ago in 1995, at the time of the UN International Conference on Women held in Beijing, China the federal government, under the direction of the Status of Women, put in place a 5-year plan on gender equality. This was called the Federal Plan on Gender Equality (1995 - 2000). This was followed by another gender analysis plan called the Agenda for Gender Equality (2000 - 2005). In accordance with these plans the Canadian government adopted a policy requiring the 24 individual federal departments and agencies to conduct gender-based analysis of policies and legislation. While the various departments were responsible for conducting gender-based analysis, Status of Women Canada provided training and support for this project.

To the dismay of the Status of Women Committee and their feminist adherents, the application of this gender-based analysis in the federal government was "uneven". According to the Committee, this was due to the lack of a binding obligation to conduct this analysis, internal resistance, and the lack of shared responsibility, all which contributed to the dismal failure of the plan.

Therefore, the Status of Women Committee began consultations in the fall of 2004 with multiple so-called "equality-seeking" women's organizations. The expression "equality-seeking" groups is used as a means to deliberately exclude REAL Women because we support traditional values which, in their view, is not "equality seeking." Never mind that the equality of women is included in our objects of incorporation! The purpose of this consultation was to determine what to do about the problem of the supposed negative impact on women by the failure to implement gender analysis within the federal government. All the women's groups that were consulted pronounced themselves, to the last woman, shocked, shocked, and appalled by this failure to properly implement gender analysis by the federal government.

In their study of this unsatisfactory situation, the Committee did, however, award gold stars to a few government departments, which were obediently carrying out gender analysis. These included:

* Citizenship and Immigration Since 2001 the department has been very good indeed about applying gender analysis to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. That Act also requires the department to report its performance on the crucial issue of gender analysis to Parliament - a move which the Committee highly approved.
* CIDA (Canada International Development Agency) This Agency administers Canada's foreign aid. The Status of Women Committee proudly recounted CIDA's contribution to gender analysis when CIDA, working on a programme to build roads in Bangladesh, hired only widows to build the roads since widows were very poor. Fathers of families did not count since CIDA's gender analysis of the situation indicated that widows needed the money more, so they excluded all males from the work.
* Health Canada Health Canada received a gold star from the Committee because in 1993 it established a Women's Health Bureau, and in 1996 allocated additional resources to establish and fund centres of excellence for women's health. The department also funds the Women's Health Contribution Programme. (Whatever that is)

Gender based analysis was first formalized at Health Canada in 1999 with the development of a "Women's Health Strategy". This commitment to gender based analysis was further strengthened in 2000 with Health Canada's release of a Gender Based policy. Remarkable.

Finance Canada

The Committee found that although Finance Canada, as a key central agency, had an important role to play in promoting and implementing gender based analysis, it had not adequately fulfilled its duties in this regard. It had made no effort to either enforce a requirement by departments to induct a gender based analysis on funding proposals or to evaluate the adequacy of the gender analyses submitted to it.

This definitely was not good news to the Committee. However, the situation was at least partly redeemed by Minister of Finance, Ralph Goodale himself, when he stated, in the House of Commons, on December 13, 2004, that he was committed to ensuring that all policy proposals for the 2005 - 2006 budget would require a gender based analysis. This made Mr. Goodale a very good boy, according to the Committee.

Recommendations by the Status of Women Committee

After its extensive study of the failure by the federal government to properly apply gender based analysis, the Committee made the following recommendations to the government to enforce gender analysis.

1. That the Government of Canada immediately initiate consultations, in time for the 2006 - 2007 budget, aimed at the development of legislation that would ensure the systematic application of gender based analysis to all federal policy and program activities
2. That the Privy Council Office (PCO) (the administrative arm of the federal government) immediately establish a secretariat with responsibility for ensuring the development and eventual implementation of effective gender equality legislation
3. That the Privy Council Office (PCO) immediately designate one official with clear responsibility to initiate and coordinate the federal government's various departments on gender based analysis.
4. That the Privy Council Office provide a written report to Parliament within 129 days on its initiative on gender based analysis
5. That the PCO secretariat table annually in Parliament a public report outlining progress toward this legislation
6. That the Privy Council Office immediately establish responsibility for analyzing all memoranda to cabinet and other cabinet documents for gender based analysis
7. That the PCO officials and all deputy ministers, and associate deputy ministers participate in workshops that provide training to assess GBA
8. That Status of Women Canada ensure that "equality-seeking" (that expression again!) women's organizations engage in a thorough consultation on the equality goals for priority action in the 2005 - 2010 action plan on gender equality.
9. That the Treasury Board Secretariat designate a senior official to take responsibility for ensuring that gender based analysis is included in policies, directions, and requirements pertinent to the 2005- 2010 action plan on gender equality which is currently being developed by Status of Women Canada.
10. That every federal department and agency immediately designate an assistant or associate deputy minister with responsibility for gender based analysis.
11. That senior level departmental policy and other committees within all federal departments and agencies require regular, at least annual, progress reports on gender based analysis with a particular focus on specific results.

No "half-measures" for these feminists! They are clearly convinced that gender analysis is the answer to their prayers to have feminism dominate the national agenda.

Status of Women Canada

The government agency, the Status of Women Canada, thrilled by the Committee's recommendations, which would provide it with increased stature, recognition and power, decided to do its part in encouraging this fortunate turn of events. It did this by announcing that it had commenced an online consultation with regard to gender equality. The first question asked on this consultation is whether the respondent supports gender equality, and the second question asked is whether gender based analysis would be the best route to follow in order to achieve gender equality. The purpose of this consultation was to point out that there was overwhelming support for gender analysis by the general public. Gerrymandered to produce the desired result, the consultation will make the feminists' point, which is the entire object of the exercise, but not necessarily the truth.

Finally, in order to ensure that gender analysis is properly applied by the federal government, the Status of Women Canada also established an "expert" panel to study "accountability and to provide advice on strengthening gender equality in Canada." We have no doubt that these feminists "experts" will arrive at even more rules and recommendations to further ensure that gender analysis is enforced in Canada.

Please write to Prime Minister Paul Martin, the Minister of Finance, Ralph Goodale, the Minister responsible for the Status of Women, Liza Frulla, and your MP, strongly objecting to this proposed take-over by feminists, who have little or no support from the general public in imposing their gender analysis in Canada.

<sniped>

From the R.E.A.L. Women of Canada newsletter, Issue Jan-Feb 2000

THE STATUS OF WOMEN MUST BE DISBANDED

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In 1973, in response to a recommendation by the 1970 Royal Commission Report on the Status of Women, the Status of Women section of the federal Department of Secretary of State was established. The purpose of the Status of Women was to advance the equality of women in Canada.

However, in the nearly thirty years since it was formed, this government agency has degenerated into a caricature of what was intended, and has become an agent for the promotion of a radical feminist revolution in Canada. It remains locked into the ideology of feminism and its discredited policies, established back in the 1960s and 1970s. That is, although women’s needs and interests have moved on, the feminists at the Status of Women haven't noticed. They are still busily promoting pay and employment equity and universal day care, long discarded policies. Women today are more concerned about the stress in their lives caused by divorce and family breakdown, job insecurity, excessive taxation, and lack of support and respect for the effort of parents in raising their children. Yet, the Status of Women keeps sputtering the extreme left-leaning agenda of the old-time feminists and lesbians in Canada.

Moreover, the fact that the Minister for Women’s Issues, Hedy Fry, represents the riding of Vancouver Centre in the House of Commons is significant, since the riding has a large homosexual/lesbian population. This has considerable influence on Ms. Fry's support and advocacy for lesbian groups.

In fact, the Status of Women, under Hedy Fry, has paid out $253,918 to lesbian causes alone in the fiscal years 1996–1998. More than half of this went to lesbian groups in Ms. Fry’s own BC province. Lesbian advocacy groups there received $145,418 during this twenty-month period (April 1996 - December 1998). The grants to lesbian groups are as follows:

<sniped>

REAL Women of Canada, which supports traditional marriage, applied for and was denied a grant by the Status of Women in 1999. We apparently don’t rate as a genuine women's group by the Status of Women.

The lesbian groups which are the beneficiaries of such generous funding from the Status of Women are intolerant and discriminate against REAL Women and other traditional women's groups. (See, "REAL Women Experiences Discrimination at Federal Conference," p. 1.)

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