i actually laughed out loud when i read this today:"liberal leader michael ignatieff is committing his party, if elected, to improve equal pay for women, launch a full-scale investigation of missing aboriginal women and establish a national program of day-care and early learning."
so if michael ignatieff is elected prime minister of canada in the next election he is going to just snap his fingers and do everything that feminist activists and politicians have been trying to do for decades? he's going to reverse the damage that stephen harper's conservatives have inflicted?
he's going to save the world yo!!!
maybe he realized that his charm isn't going to work on the ladies this time around.
call me a skeptic, but where was ignatieff when all of things he proposes to fix were implemented?
where was ignatieff's demand of a public apology when harper denied the existence of colonialism in canada? because, in case you didn't know, that has a hell of a lot to do with the "missing aboriginal women" ignatieff plans on investigating.
where was he when the conservatives tried to make it impossible for women to access the human rights commission to address pay equity concerns?
a national program of day care? so ignatieff is going to single handedly fix the day care problem? a problem that is still one of the biggest barriers for women with children who want to access education or employment?
when michael ignatieff criticized israeli apartheid week and didn't challenge jason kenney's decision to not allow george galloway to come into canada, did he realize that a lot of the organizers of the events were young women? did he realize that by participating in the attack on israeli apartheid events he was condoning the subsequent harassment of such women?? did he even think about how his actions affected women in both israel and palestine?
does he think women are stupid? that all he has to do to win is say "don't worry baby, ima fix these problems for you"? i don't know anybody who is that stupid.
here's what i think, i think that ignatieff should start pushing for these changes NOW. he doesn't need to be the prime minister of the country to stand for aboriginal women's rights or national day care. he doesn't need to be the prime minister to support pay equity.
so instead of holding all of these issues over women's heads to obtain their vote, why doesn't ignatieff prove to us now that he's worth our vote.
2 comments:
Excellent points!
What's even more insidious about Ignatieff's "commitment" to "women's issues" is that he actually didn't commit to them at all! Unless I missed it, all I've seen has been the release of the "Pink Book", which is the federal Liberal Women's Caucus' *recommendations* for policies a Liberal government should pursue if elected. These are the policies they will *recommend*. Nowhere have I seen Ignatieff actually say his government will *commit* to implementing them! Not only do they leave out a million things (reinstatement of full SWC funding and the Court Challenges Program? the legalization of court-sponsored efforts to achieve pay equity? the right to strike and free collective bargaining for women in the workforce? educational funding for aboriginal women? actually anything for aboriginal women besides an investigation into the ongoing genocide?) but this is no commitment in the first place - it's just a statement that these are the issues the *women* in the Liberal party see as important. I'd also like to see the Liberals stop speaking in 1960s stereotypes. "The conscience of the party"?? *Pink* book??? Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I wish I had time to add to this- it's most brilliant.
The only route to these simple rights is to vote for a social democratic party.
Post a Comment