Canada’s New Democratic Party Marks 40 Years of Fighting for LGBT Rights

Forty years ago this month, Canada’s New Democratic Party took a historic stand for equality and justice.

On Nov. 7, 1967, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected the appeal of George Everett Klippert, who had been condemned to indefinite imprisonment for consensual sexual relations with other men. The next day, Tommy Douglas, the first leader of the NDP, rose in the House of Commons and called for homosexuality to be decriminalized.

Since then, the NDP has never ceased to lead the pack in defense of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. New Democrats succeeded in banning discrimination based on sexual orientation, tirelessly worked for equal marriage and are fighting today for international LGBT rights and for an end to discrimination based on gender identity.

"Canada has led the world in equality and participation of gay and lesbian citizens. But challenges remain. Transsexual and transgender Canadians need full human rights protections, and LGBTT people in Canada and around the world suffer prejudice and discrimination, even to the point of violence and death. Our work is not yet done.”

LINK: GW

iKickBack

The University of Waterloo recently held an iKickback seminar. Many of the basic moves can be found on YouTube

RELATED: Downloadable "Reduce The Risk"

Whitehorse women to be consulted about how to improve housing

The Yukon government will start work aimed at improving housing for women in the territory, it was announced Tuesday.

Elaine Taylor, the minister responsible for the Women’s Directorate, said the initiative will focus on increasing access to affordable and secure housing for women and children in need and victims of violence

LINK: Whitehorse Star

Women’s problems never change, says Provincial Advisory Council on the Status of Women (PACSW)

Newfoundland and Labrador: Despite the advances in women’s equality, Leslie MacLeod says the problems women face in their everyday lives are the same ones they faced 40 and 50 years ago: Childcare, work, housing, justice, and discrimination.

LINK: The Muse

'Feminist' - if you look it up in the dictionary.....

'Feminist, if you look it up in the dictionary, means 'people who believe women should have rights and opportunities equal to men.' I think it's very telling that there is one word in the language that means women are equal and we won't say it. We can't say it and we don't identify with it.'

Ani Difranco

Oda ignored officials on changes to women's agency....Verner's no better!

Conservative minister Bev Oda ignored the advice of her departmental officials last year when she changed the objectives and funding criteria for Status of Women Canada's main granting program, changes that included deleting references to the word equality.

Only a few months before the Tories transformed the terms, conditions and objectives of the Women's Program, former Status of Women co-ordinator Florence Ievers recommended to Oda that they stay exactly the same. Her memo to Oda was obtained by The Canadian Press through Access to Information legislation. Oda has since been replaced in the portfolio by Josee Verner.

"Maintain the current WP (Women's Program) mandate, objectives and areas of focus," Ievers wrote in June 2006, as part of a scheduled review of the terms and conditions.

Ievers also noted that her recommendations be carried out "within existing resource levels."

During the same time period of government deliberations on the program, an online campaign had been started by a number of social conservatives, including REAL Women of Canada, to axe Status of Women Canada altogether.

By September, the Tories had cut $5 million from the agency's administrative budget and had moved to rewrite the mandate of the Women's Program, a funding envelope that distributes money to organizations across the country.

The word "equality" disappeared from all literature, and groups that did advocacy or research work on women's issues were no longer eligible to receive cash.

The four previous objectives of the Women's Program, which included helping women's organizations get involved in the public policy process and increasing public awareness of women's equality, were replaced with a single line: "To achieve the full participation of women in the economic, social and cultural life of Canada."

For the first time, for-profit organizations also became eligible for funding. None of the changes was recommended to Oda by officials in their memo.

Verner emphasized in an interview Wednesday that her government wants to see funding go to projects that provide direct services to women.

"The officials offer advice, not direction, and what we decided to do was to offer to every woman a practical support for concrete results for them," Verner said.

In the past several months, a number of women's organizations, including the National Association of Women and the Law and the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, have closed their doors or laid off staff because their core funding dried up. They argue that without their advocacy work over the decades, many legal gains made by women would not have been achieved.

"Instead of (Oda) listening to the people who knew what they were talking about, she was driven by this anti-equality ideology of the governing party, and clearly her marching orders were contrary to the best interests of the women of this country," said NDP Status of Women critic Irene Mathyssen

Both Oda and Verner have explained that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms already guarantees women's equality, therefore it was unnecessary to have it spelled out in the agency's objectives, and terms and conditions.

The department felt differently.

"The Women's Program remains relevant in the current context where considerable work remains to be done to advance women's equality and where women's groups and their issues have become increasingly diverse and strategies complex," Ievers wrote in the memo, referring to an evaluation of the program that had been undertaken.

The government has faced stiff opposition to the changes at Status of Women from all opposition parties and women's groups across the country. In the last federal budget, the Conservatives announced they would put $10 million more into the Women's Program, effectively increasing the agency's total budget by $5 million.

"What we decided to do is to take money from the bureaucracy, and direct the money towards Canadian women for projects that can change their lives," said Verner.

Verner pointed out that the government has initiated a mentoring program for aboriginal women, one to combat violence against young women and girls, and another to protect women with intellectual challenges.

LINK: CJAD

Advocacy: Jordan's Principle

The organizations involved in Many Hands, One Dream are promoting a national advocacy campaign encouraging federal and provincial/territorial governments to adopt a child-first principle to resolving jurisdictional disputes involving the care of First Nations children. A news release was issued on May 28, 2007.

Under “Jordan’s Principle,” children would no longer face delays or disruptions in essential medical and health services while governments argue over who will pay the bill. A recent research report indicates that jurisdictional disputes involving the costs of caring for First Nations children are common, with nearly 400 occurring in 12 sample First Nations child and family service agencies in just one year.

Jordan’s Principle honours a young First Nations child from Norway House, Man., who was born with complex medical needs and languished in hospital for two years while the federal and provincial governments argued over who would pay for his at-home care. Jordan died in hospital, having never spent a day in a family home. You can read more about Jordan’s story here.

Here are some simple steps that you can take to ensure governments adopt Jordan’s Principle:

• Send a letter to the federal Minister of Health, Tony Clement
• Send a letter to your provincial or territorial Minister of Health
• Call your Member of Parliament to discuss this issue, or set up a meeting
• Encourage members in your network to advocate for Jordan’s Principle

Some resources to help:
A template letter to ministers that you can use
A list of contact information for health ministers
A short item that you can use for your print or electronic newsletters to encourage others in your network to get involved
Please contact manyhands@cps.ca if you have any questions, or to keep us up-to-date on your activities:

Pakistan Women: Revered activist Asma Jahangir under house arrest

Asma Jahangir is no terrorist. She is not a hardened criminal. She is a tough-minded, self-taught, internationally admired lawyer who has spent most of her adult life speaking out for democracy and against military leaders such as Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf.

For her insistence that the government obey the constitution and respect individual rights, Jahangir was put under house arrest Saturday, within hours of Musharraf's declaration of a national state of emergency.

Now 55, Jahangir has campaigned since she was a teenager against military rulers who have held sway over Pakistan. More than once, her willingness to speak out and protest in the streets has landed the diminutive woman in jail.

The organization she helped found in 1986, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, has championed women's rights, demanded an end to bonded labor, challenged blasphemy laws, defended media freedoms and exposed official corruption.

FULL STORY: LA Times

Elsewhere.....fem/links on the web

The Faculty of Education at The University of Western Ontario and its Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children is hosting a community workshop on the role of workplaces, neighbours, friends and families in responding to the warning signs of woman abuse.

Short definition: Internalized sexism is the involuntary internalization by women of the sexist messages that are present in their societies and culture. It also the way in which women reinforce sexism by utilizing and relaying sexist messages that they’ve internalized

There are myths in society which prevent the development of quality child care programs for rural children. "When rural communities are fighting to survive, when we need services, when we want people, young parents to move into our town we need child care" Rural Child Care - We're Worth It!

Ms. Cook sited recent studies that show that one quarter of women between the age of 20 and 24 smoke, which is much higher than rates for other age groups. The prevalence of smoking in that group also has to do with the level of stress women face when coping with adolescence, school and other social experiences, she said.


Good News! A popular magazine has agreed to stop running sex ads in its back pages. New York Magazine said it will no longer accept the classified ads, after the local chapter of the National Organization for Woman threatened to hold protests against the magazine – saying the ads promote prostitution and human trafficking.

Don't despair! The Carnival of Radical Feminists is here!

Canada has a $50 million aid program that goes toward promoting women in society and improving health care, education and the economy, but it is a very small amount compared to the $4 billion in development funding that Pakistan receives from international donors each year. Pakistan is the 26th largest recipient of overall Canadian development aid. Haiti and Afghanistan top that list. Harper silent on Pakistan crisis. For more info on events in Pakistan, check Benazir Bhutto’s op-ed in today’s NYT where she writes: "It is dangerous to stand up to a military dictatorship, but more dangerous not to. The moment has come for the Western democracies to show us in their actions, and not just in their rhetoric, which side they are on."

Tax cuts still won't help women in need

Two hundred bucks.

That's about how much federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's Halloween mini-budget will put back in my pocket at tax time.

But it won't stay there for long.

Instead, my "tax cut" will go to a charity that helps women less fortunate than myself. Stephen Harper's government, in its trick-or-treat bit of vote-buying in which it reinstated a Liberal tax break it took away last year, once again gave women the shaft.

FULL ARTICLE: TorStar

ALSO VISIT: Alternative Federal Budget

Northern women's groups strengthen ties

Northern women are now at the helm of a national coalition of women's groups.

Stephanie Williams (pictured), acting executive director of the Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women, and Sharon Thomas, executive director of the Northwest Territories Status of Women Council, are the new co-chairs of the Coalition of Advisory Councils on the Status of Women.

Stephanie Williams, acting executive director of the Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women, will co-chair the national Coalition of Women's Advisory Councils with her Northwest Territories counterpart, Sharon Thomas. - Karen Mackenzie/NNSL photo

"There are a lot of different issues that come up, but really what it comes down to is women and their families. At the end of the day we're all working towards the same thing," Williams said.

The group, which is a collaboration of nine provincial and territorial advisory councils, met in Ottawa recently to discuss both regional work and national issues.

LINK: Northern News Service

A Nobel Peace Laureate’s reflections on Canada’s place in the world

FAFIA and the Nobel Women’s Initiative invite you to attend A World of Women: A Nobel Peace Laureate’s reflections on Canada’s place in the world, feautring Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams

LINK: FAFIA