Wednesday, November 29, 2006

More Status of Women butchery and bullshit

First they cut $5million from Status of Women Canada's $23million budget. Then they bizarrely even removed the word "equality" from the SWC mandate. Today the Harper government shovelled another sweaty, steaming, maggot-infested load of bullshit on Canadian women, as they announced the pillaging of Status of Women Canada would continue with the closure of 12 of SWC's 16 offices by April 1.

Status of Women is the only government agency that promotes, monitors and protects womens' rights. It's being targeted for purely ideological reasons as the result of lobbying by anti-woman special interest groups, specifically "REAL"women. The cuts and closures to SWC are one of the bones that the Harper government is throwing to its extreme right-wing base, who want it shut down for the simple reason that it is pro-choice, pro-feminist, and pro-gay rights.

The tories' lame excuse that they're "streamlining" for more "efficiency" is a lot of happy fucking horseshit. Strange that they don't mind tossing taxpayers' dollars away by wasting parliament's time on an unnecessary debate and vote (a vote on whether to vote, for fuck sake) on equal marriage. That these cuts are ideologically-motivated, and that SWC's future on any level is in jeopardy, was made clear by this statement from the minister responsible, Bev Oda:

"We don't need to separate the men from the women in this country. . . This government as a whole is responsible to develop policies and programs that address the needs of both men and women."

How sick, sad and i-fucking-ronic that Oda should make that shit-eating statement just one week before the 17th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre.

(h/t where'd that bug go)