Paige Desmond
Women in Rainy River District can rest assured local candidates running in the Oct. 14 federal election have a mind for women’s issues—and plans of how to address them.
For NDP candidate John Rafferty, the lack of access to shelters in the district is a major setback, which must be changed if conditions are to improve for local women.
“You shouldn’t have to travel 200 km [to reach a shelter]. That access should be available to all,” he stressed, referring to the distance many district women would have to travel to the Atikokan Crisis Centre.
He said it’s not just a women’s issue, but one that affects everyone. “It’s a particular issue locally,” he added.
In the fall of 2006, the Harper government made significant changes to the Status of Women Canada, a government ministry with advocacy, research, funding, and other facets.
The Tories have been widely criticized by other parties for making cuts to funding.
“We’re certainly not pleased about it,” Rafferty said of the cuts.
If elected, Rafferty would work towards secured funding, “not funding that is at the whim of changing governments,” he explained.
He also would support the recommendations of the pay equity tax force to support proactive pay equity, which means that equal work should garner equal pay—something which has been an ongoing challenge for women in the workforce.
Rafferty said his party has always backed this idea. “We’ve always been proponents of pay equity,” he asserted.
Liberal incumbent Ken Boshcoff said his party was the first to draw attention to the cuts made to Status of Women Canada and further called the cuts discriminatory. He said it’s also part of his platform to make sure pay equity is enacted promptly.
Boshcoff cited his support of victims’ services here as an example of a women’s issue he stands behind.
Meanwhile, Conservative candidate Richard Neumann defended his party, saying everyone has it wrong. “We actually increased the budget by $10 million,” he noted.
Neumann said changes and downsizing made to individual departments of SWC “don’t necessarily show the big picture,” adding Status of Women Canada is no more important than any other government-funded program.
Neumann outlined how the Conservative party is trying to reduce the administrative costs of several programs to free up dollars which can be put to better use in other areas of those programs.
“The overall commitment hasn’t changed at all,” he stressed.
On a different note, Neumann warned to be leery when classifying a “women’s issue.”
“It would be my view that we should be careful about how we view women’s issues in general,” he remarked, saying community issues are interconnected—not occurring in isolation.
A major area of concern for Neumann, however, is the issue of “deadbeat dads”— men who dodge paying required support payments while women struggle to make ends meet without them.
“This is indicative of the type of thing that desperately needs support,” Neumann pledged.
“I absolutely believe strongly in support of women’s shelters,” he added, agreeing with Rafferty.
The cuts to Status of Women Canada are regarded by Green Party candidate Russ Aegard as an “atrocious move—to have their funding cut is just a slap in the face to women everywhere.”
Equal opportunity and sensitivity training strike the Green as important steps toward resolving women’s issues.
“We need to support more education,” Aegard stressed, adding people don’t know what it’s like to be an immigrant or a woman, and how to deal with those challenges of stigma.
