children playing

Tories drop funding for women's groups [CA]

Printer-friendly versionSend by emailPDF version
Author: 
Canadian Press
Format: 
Article
Publication Date: 
5 Oct 2006
AVAILABILITY

See text below.

EXCERPTS

The federal Conservative government says it will no longer fund women's groups that do advocacy, lobbying or general research.

The drastic change to the mandate and operation of Status of Women Canada also drops the word "equality" when listing the agency's goals.

Previous objectives such as helping women's organizations participate in the public policy process and increasing the public's understanding of women's equality issues have been eliminated from government literature.

Organizations that receive funding from the Trudeau-era agency were stunned.

"When you look at this Conservative government's policy it's like, `Be good girls, be quiet.' It's shocking really," said Monica Lysack of the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada.

Groups initially thought the agency's core program had escaped the axe during a government-wide spending review that was announced last week, when only the administrative side of Status of Women Canada was cut.

But they were told this week by Status of Women Minister Bev Oda that they would no longer be able to receive funding for projects that involved advocacy work, lobbying of the government or general research, as part of new terms and conditions for grants.

- reprinted from Canadian Press

Region: