Out of commission

I have mentioned the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism only a couple of times, and always in passing, mostly because I really don't see it as part of my mandate, despite the fact that my beat is, officially, ''social issues and cultural trends.''

A quick summary of what the Coalition is about:

The CPCCA (Canadian Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism) was formed in March of 2009 and brings together 22 Parliamentarians from all parties in the House of Commons for the stated purpose of confronting and combating antisemitism in Canada today. The group is broken into two committees: the Inquiry Panel (chaired by MP Mario Silva) and the Steering Committee (chaired by MP Scott Reid).

The Inquiry was launched on June 2nd, with an open call for written submissions by the Canadian public. After receiving nearly 200 written submissions, the committee will begin its public hearings starting on the 2nd of November. At the conclusion of the hearings, the committee will produce a report to the Government of Canada, and anticipates that the Government will respond to this report no later than the fall of 2010.

The CPCCA is not affiliated with the Government of Canada, any NGO, or any advocacy group. It is associated with the Inter-parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism, the international steering committee which organized the conference in London in 2009.

One could make the case that redefining antisemitism to include criticism of Israel -- which appears to be what the CPCCA's intent is, at least judging from its website FAQs -- is very much a social issue in that it affects Canadians' freedom of speech. But I'll leave that to my Star colleagues Tom Walkom, Haroon Siddiqui and Linda McQuaig as well as blogger Dr. Dawg -- although I have posted articles about it on my Facebook profile to some interesting and very heated discussions. (Incidentally, the CPCCA has received pitifully little corporate media coverage.)

Today I received a copy of an open letter to Liberal MP Hedy Fry which ties directly into what I see as my beat. Here it is, unedited, with some links added by me:

To: Dr. Hedy Fry, M.P.
From: Joanne Naiman
Re: Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism
Date: Dec. 8, 09

Dear Dr. Fry,

This past Sunday—the twentieth anniversary of the Montreal massacre—I attended the memorial you spoke at in Vancouver. Your speech was moving and touched on the real concerns of women across the country. However, while you spoke, I was seething underneath. You see, I am a retired sociologist, an activist, and a Jew. This summer, I made a submission to the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism, of which you are a member. In that submission, I noted that, while anti-Semitism certainly exists in Canada, it is a minor social problem when compared to, say, homelessness, the conditions of indigenous people, or other forms of ethno-racial discrimination. I am ashamed to say that what I didn’t think to compare it to, but should have, is the problems faced by women in this country.

I stood in the cold with you on Sunday thinking to myself that my chances of being harmed—whether with words, low wages, or by a gun—are statistically far greater as a result of my being female than my being Jewish.  For example, if I were a young Jewish woman on a university campus in Canada, I would be at much greater risk of experiencing physical assault or abuse because of my gender than because of my religion. On average, 182 females were killed every year in Canada between 1994 and 2003 (www.statcan.gc.ca) and almost half of all women in 1998 reported having been sexually assaulted after leaving high school (Jewish Women International). And if I were a native woman, I would be at least five times more likely than other women in Canada to die as the result of violence.

I am not trying to make an invidious comparison between the suffering of one group as compared to another, but the facts speak for themselves. Anti-Semitism is an odious but minor reality in Canada, and has been so for many years. Meanwhile, the conditions for women have been deteriorating, and most of the poor in this country continue to be women. In recent years funding to women’s organizations has been cut drastically, a proposed national childcare program has been abandoned, unions are being attacked resulting in lower wages and worsening working conditions for many women (particularly in B.C.), the long gun registry is under threat of being dismantled,  native women continue to suffer the consequence of their peoples’ horrific maltreatment,  and—according to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (Nov 2008)— “...hundreds of cases involving Aboriginal women who have gone missing or been murdered in the past two decades have neither been fully investigated nor attracted priority attention.”  I’m sure, Dr. Fry, that you are well aware of these facts.

The obvious question, then, is, why have you agreed to participate in this unprecedented and undemocratic Parliamentary Coalition that is spending a great deal of time and money investigating what must be described as a minor social problem? Instead, why aren’t you and your party calling for a similar entity to resolve even a few of the serious problems faced by untold numbers of women in this country? Imagine if we had a Canadian Parliamentary Coalition on Women’s Issues (CPCWI) that planned to make its report to government in the next few months and—as seems to be the case with the CPCCA –expected “that the Government will respond to it by the spring of 2010 (CPCCA news release, June 2, 2009).” Just imagine if this government were to respond to women’s concerns so quickly and so favourably.

Of course, as others have recently noted, the CPCCA—in line with the International Commission for Combatting Anti-Semitism—is not primarily about anti-Semitism at all, but rather is clearly an attempt to muzzle serious legitimate debate about and criticism of the policies of the State of Israel towards Palestinians—men, women and children. This is clear from reading the CPCCA website.  How else can one explain why this Coalition has largely ignored submissions from among the many individuals and groups (including those in the Jewish community) who are critical of Israel’s policies?  Why is the last group to be called to these hearings (in January and February of 2010) police officers, whom, we are told, will make “recommendations regarding standard definitions of antisemitism to be adopted by police forces across the country”? Why else would this Coalition expect the Conservative-led government to respond so favourably and so quickly to its report? Lastly, why, despite statements to the contrary on its website, has the CPCCA refused to date to reveal its funding sources?*

As a Jew, I am proud of our tradition as a caring and compassionate people that has advocated for universalism, that is, the rights and freedoms of all people. It is this tradition that led many Jews to actively support the Black civil rights movement in the United States and the struggle to end Apartheid in South Africa. But while the narrow and dangerous terms of reference of this Coalition therefore make me outraged, they also make me afraid.  As noted in my submission, this unprecedented Parliamentary Coalition will doubtless convince those already predisposed to believe it that Jews hold undue sway in the political arena, and it will therefore inevitably fan the flames of anti-Semitism in this country.  I therefore, lastly, ask you to explain to me why you and your party continue to be part of the CPCCA.

I look forward to your early response in this serious matter.

Sincerely,


Joanne Naiman, M.A., B.Ed.
Professor Emerita,
Department of Sociology
Ryerson University
Toronto
(now living in Vancouver)

c.c. Joyce Murray, M.P.
      Carolyn Bennett, M.P.
      Judy Wasylycia-Leis,  M.P.
      Sid Shniad, Independent Jewish Voices, Vancouver
      Lynda Lemberg, Educators for Peace and Justice, Toronto

Two things I will add here.

As I marked with an * above, I don't know that anybody has actually asked the CPCCA for the source of its funding and has been refused the information. Also, the website states that the inquiry is ''independent of the Government opf Canada, although the hearings are being held in the Centre Block on Parliament Hill.

And, for the record, one submission to the CPCCA, which is currently holding hearings, actually hints that even questioning the need for an inquiry is antisemitic.

And so it goes ...

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: I like this letter to the editor in today's Star. Here's part of it:

The public incitement of hatred section of the Criminal Code should be amended to conform to Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, thereby granting protection to girls and women. Currently, the law only protects those identified by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin and sexual orientation.

Omitting girls and women from the list compromises their safety. This gap between the Charter of Rights and the Criminal Code is a stark piece of unfinished business. Why is it taking so long to deal with it?

Smoking gun

Well, well. There is justice after all.

Looks like the blogger behind this hateful website, about which I posted the other day, is being charged with uttering death threats.

Jean-Claude Rochefort, 60, is accused of uttering threats against women from April to December 2009. He has already been charged with possessing an illegal firearm.

Rochefort created a website where authorities say he posted hateful, aggressive and menacing comments about women. Rochefort also referred to Marc Lepine, the gunman who killed 14 women at Montreal's École Polytechnique in 1989, as "Saint Marc."

One image shows the Montreal university with the caption "Where it all started."

Another caption says "where it could happen again, with the right people and the right equipment."

Rocherfort has said his website is "humorous," and that feminists made a hero out of the Polytechnique shooter by constantly talking about the tragedy.

Oh yeah. Humour. Just a joke. Haha.

Meanwhile, we feminazis can't win for losing. According to this busted men's rights maroon, we made a hero out of the murderer of 14 women while according to her, her and him, we are perpetrators of some sort of ''misandric'' ''death cult'' if we dare mention that there are some bonafide women-haters out there and maybe they should have to register their guns?

No no. We should just shut up our big fat feminist mouths now and go away.

But, no, there's no woman-hating out there, is there?

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: The mods have closed comments because, as they just reminded me, we don't allow comments on stories where there are or may be charges.

Open season

Here's a great catch by Liberal Catnip (I added some links):

From Monday's Question Period:

Mr. Serge Ménard (Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, BQ):  Mr. Speaker, Suzanne  Laplante-Edward, mother of Anne-Marie Edward, who was killed when just 21 years old in the École Polytechnique massacre, deplores the fact that the Conservative government is perversely dismantling the firearms registry. By relaxing firearms controls, the Conservatives are attacking, and I quote, “the monument erected in memory of our young women.”

When will this government acknowledge that the firearms registry helps prevent violence against women?

Hon. Helena Guergis (Minister of State Status of Women, CPC):  Mr. Speaker, any suggestion that any member in this House would not want to see an end to violence against women is not only wrong, it is hateful. The ineffective Liberal gun registry has done absolutely nothing to protect Canadians and it has done nothing to make Canadian women safer. The hon. member will know this if he looks deep inside himself.

Far be it from me to speculate whether M. Menard will go all zen and contemplate his innards, not to mention his hate-filled ways. But dang, that Guergis has a penchant for hyperbole, no?

In fact, commenter Hysperia captured that aspect of the minister very nicely over here. Don't miss it.

I guess Madame Laplante-Edward ought to know better than express concern over the scrapping of  ''the ineffective Liberal gun registry.''

If it is so ineffective, then why do doctors, as well as police chiefs, support it?

The Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians (CAEP) is greatly concerned about the recent endorsement by the House of Commons of Bill C-391, which, if passed, would repeal the Long Gun Registry. As emergency physicians, we see the true horror of firearm injury and death and can attest to the fact that the long gun registry saves lives.

According to Statistics Canada, there were 818 firearm deaths in Canada in 2005.  72.5% (593) of these firearm deaths were suicides. This amounts to one person every 15 hours. Over 80% of these suicide deaths were due to long guns. Gun control saves lives. Since the gun control registry was introduced in 1995, firearm suicides have decreased by 35%.

Those opposed to long gun registration claim that there is a lack of criminal activity involving long guns. This is not true. Of firearm-related homicides in 2008 in Canada, 34% were by rifles or shotguns, 61% by handguns and 17% by prohibited firearms.  Long guns were used in 72% of firearm-related spousal homicides. Between 1995 and 2004, there was a 36% decrease in the use of firearms in spousal homicides.

For many these may just be statistics. For emergency physicians these are real people whose demise by long gun bring tragedy to our emergency departments as we frantically try to save their lives. Families' lives are shattered in a moment, and despite doing this regularly, we can never get used to witnessing their anguish. Dr. Carolyn Snider, a CAEP member and lead author of the peer reviewed and published "CAEP Position Statement on Gun Control" says "We recognize that the great majority of gun owners in Canada are responsible citizens. The long gun registry is not about treating them as criminals; it is about protecting the vulnerable among us. The recent vote is appalling. We will witness the tragic consequences of this bill."

So who hates whom here?

Memo to Gun Nuts: There is no right to bear arms in Canada.

For a smoking takedown of the gun lobby propaganda, I cede this post to Jennifer. Brilliant.

P.S. I found the image here. Oh teh irony. It burnz.

Return fire

Today the Star's editorial pages published a letter from Helena Guergis, Minister of State for the Status of  Women. Typically, it was edited for length.

As regular readers know, Guergis has figured heavily in my posts and columns about the anniversary of the Ecole Polytechnique Massacre, mostly because she voted to abolish the long-gun registry which law enforcement and medical groups supported.

I thought it only fair that I reprint her complete letter, unedited here.

In keeping with the Star's policy on allowing readers to have their say, I will post this without added commentary. I've said my piece on this subject. But you may feel free to weigh in.

Here's the letter:

As Canadians observe the 20th Anniversary of the Montreal Massacre, I would like to believe that some things are above partisan politics.   Not everyone shares my view.  Antonia Zerbisias’ recent piece, “Tory ‘girlfriends’ hew to party line on femicide” was appalling.

 We are not “girlfriends,” we are all strong members of Caucus who represent our constituents’ views on legislation, bring in new and effective programs and work alongside our colleagues in parliament.

We will not let our critics stop us from holding important ceremonies.
We will not allow their attacks to deter us from being strong members of Parliament and passing our tough-on-crime agenda.

Our Conservative Government has made many positive policy changes as well, like providing funding directly to grassroots programs that serve hundreds of thousands of women and girls in the communities in which they live.  For more than 40 percent of these groups, this is the first time they have received funding and support from the federal government.

Just last week, I announced that our Government is contributing $1 million to support the establishment of Uniting to End Violence against Women, a project that will help to end violence against women and children by bringing together shelter organizations from across Canada.
In addition to the targeted action within my portfolio at the Status of Women, we are taking concrete steps to protect women across government. Our Government has passed The Tackling Violent Crimes Act that provides better protection for young girls against sexual predators. We are also working to end conditional sentencing for serious crimes such as rape, and recently released a new citizen’s guide which explicitly states Canada will not tolerate barbaric cultural practices that debase and demean women and their role in society. These are only a few of the measures we are taking to deliver safer streets for women and for all Canadians.
While there may be different ways to address an issue, a difference of opinion on policy neither changes our personal commitment to ending violence against women, nor our Government’s commitment to do the same.

Signed,

The Honourable Helena Guergis, P.C., M.P.

Minister of State (Status of Women)

Note: I changed the photo to the haunting image captured by staffer Carlos yesterday.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Pale gets in there.

Memento Mori

Some links, comments and thoughts on the 20th anniversary of the Ecole Polytechnique Massacre...

The guys who don't get it: The Blogging Tories, brought to you by the ever-watchful Canadian Cynic who notes that none of the drooling Con fans care a whit about violence against women. Only one (at the time of my posting) has even noted the massacre, but just to knock down any links to the long-gun registry.

Guys aside from Cynic who get it include POGGE, Matt and Dr. Dawg. 

Dawg raises a number of points worth further exploration.

First, how, in post 9/11 Canada, so much is being made of the Dec. 6 shooter's paternity.

There's a gaggle of xenophobic yokels who call him Gamil Gharbi these days, as though to score some kind of point. The Montreal Massacre as a narrative about Islam? Perhaps for those whose politics are little more than a slobber of prejudice.

Even in the Globe and Mail.

It's almost as if these people, who are harping on the fact that his birth name was Arab/Muslim, are suggesting that his targeting of women students was ''honour killing'' on a massive scale. I won't stoop to providing links to some of the more hateful examples.

Second, and also from Dawg, there continues to be denial that the massacre had anything to do with woman-hatred.

(T)here will be those who argue that the women's movement, too, has long hitched its political wagon to this rotten star. Some certainly made claims of that kind at the time. They insisted that it was "opportunistic" for a movement dedicated to advocating for the rights of women to speak out about the Montreal femicide. I continue to find this very odd. What on earth was the women's movement supposed to do about this horrific condensation of social misogyny? Be silent?

If a man had entered that polytechnic twenty years ago and ordered all the Gentiles to leave, and proceeded to murder fourteen Jews, would anyone seriously criticize the Canadian Jewish Congress for speaking out about anti-Semitism?

Strangely, while some continue to live in denial, others -- as I pointed out in yesterday's post  -- think the killer was a hero. Just read the first comment here, which I found via JJ. (I swiped the rose image from her as well.)

Marc Lepine was a MARTYR in the war against feminism.  

As Dawg reminds us, members of Canada's Airborne once held a mess dinner to honour the killer. As this moving short film by Ling Chiu recalls, in the aftermath, at least two men treated the massacre like a joke, publicly pranking people into thinking another one was underway. Then, there's this. And this. And this.

Why am I posting links to these woman-haters again? Because some readers of this blog think I exaggerate when I say there is real and frightening misogyny in this world. Just read the hatefest compiled by Ruth.

Note that many of the haters just LOVE their guns.

On a different note, you might want to catch up with Pale, Brebis and, especially, Hysperia's thoughts on this how far women have come, or haven't come, in Steven Harper's Canada.

I, for one, want to make it hurt.  I want to keep sorting out the links between these rightwing policies and liberal betrayals and putting them out there.  I want to defeat the HarpyCons but I also want to make it dead clear that, as a woman, I can’t find a blessed party that truly represents me and my sisters and others for whom I care.  I reject a “headlong retreat into fantasy”.  I’ll not sit around waiting for this culture to die.  That might all sound a little melodramatic but there it is and it suits me just fine.

On this day, December 6th, 2009, when I want to reflect and grieve the women’s lives lost in Montreal in 1989 and all the women of this country who died before or since as a result of intimate partner violence and public violence against women – all those whose names we don’t know – I’ve actually had to time defending my right to define, with my sisters, the meaning of the event and the meaning of those lives and deaths.  When women are murdered because they are women, we still have to fight to say so.  We are so far away, still, twenty years later, from doing those things that must be done to begin the end of male violence against women that we still struggle for the definition itself.

I wish no person physical harm.  But I do want to make that hurt by defeating this government and any other government that thinks it can lead a country while ignoring the needs of half its population.

Indeed.

 

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Sharon Fraser has some interesting memories.

At around the same time, a young friend of mine was walking into Tim Horton’s to buy some doughnuts. There were two men in front of her carrying a newspaper with a screaming headline about the murdered women and one of the men said something along the lines of, “way to go, buddy.”

FED-UP WOMAN DATE: Sister Sage brings it on home.

14 Candles

The F-Word

I've just read the front page piece by my Star colleague Catherine Porter, the one commemorating the Ecole Polytechnique massacre of Dec. 6, 1989.

She interviews Nathalie Provost, who was shot four times and survived, when a gunman burst into that engineering school 20 years ago. (I won't name him because I prefer to remember his victims.) Here's a snip:

"We are not feminists."

A young, incredulous Nathalie Provost said those words to Marc Lépine 20 years ago Sunday. It was a bid to save her and her fellow students' lives – the women Lépine had isolated in a university classroom before opening fire on them with a semi-automatic hunting rifle.

Provost was one of the lucky four who survived. "At the time, I thought to be a feminist meant you had to be militant," says Provost, who today is overworked and feeling skittish as the anniversary approaches. She was the young woman who, from her hospital bed a couple days later, urged Canadian girls to not be frightened by the event and to pursue engineering careers. She was also my introduction to feminism in life, not just theory. And to the concept that the personal is political.

"I realized many years later that in my life and actions, of course I was a feminist. I was a woman studying engineering and I held my head up."

If you go through the comments section, which seems to have been invaded by the gun nuts and some of the angrier men's rights activists, you'll see:

1. That there's a lot of denial that the long-gun registry, which Parliament is set on eliminating, has anything to do with preventing violence against women.

This is unmitigated crap, as I have said over and over again. And Statistics Canada proves it. Check it.

Can it be a coincidence that, since the registry was established, the number of femicides by rifles -- which the preferred method of shooting one's spouse to death -- has declined drastically? Fact is, having a gun in the home will make somebody more likely to use it.

True, the numbers were already on a downward trend but, research shows, much of that can probably be explained by the fact that, thanks to the feminist movement, women were becoming more economically independent and a network of shelters and other services was being built. Women who have the means to get out will more likely get out -- although, sadly, that's when they are at the most vulnerable to being stalked and killed.

Just read men's rights activist regular Keith in the comments in my previous post on this subject where he attempts to justify these murders by writing:

''How many women who are the ultimate victim of violence, were killed by a gun due to social policies which enslave men to pay the female victim money, in the form of so called child support, to make the women independant while making the man destitude?''

Charming. The system sucks so you shoot the mother of your children. Poor victimized men's rights activist.

But I digress.

Eliminating the gun registry is not only a slap in the face to the Dec. 6 victims and their families, it's also another insult to women by the Conservatives. But they don't get it, as The Star's Susan Delacourt reports today:

The potential demise of Canada's long-gun registry cast a shadow Friday over any attempts by federal politicians to mark the 20th anniversary of the massacre of 14 women at Montreal's l'École Polytechnique.

In the Commons, Bloc Québécois MP Thierry St-Cyr (Jeanne-Le Ber) said the survivors of the tragedy have been let down by the "hypocrisy" of a government that helped usher in recent private member's legislation to wind down the gun registry.

Quoting Heidi Rathjen, one of those survivors, St-Cyr said: "It is a slap in the face of the victims of Polytechnique, as well as of all other victims of firearms."

But Conservative MP Sylvie Boucher, parliamentary secretary for the status of women, said the Bloc should be ashamed to be playing political games on the backs of women's deaths. Conservatives are proud of all the law-and-order measures they've introduced to combat violence against women and punish those responsible, noted Boucher.

Oh please. Many men who shoot their wives have no criminal records. You can't preemptively lock them up. But the gun registry allowed the police to take away the rifles of men who did have priors.

Get it?

However, one thing they often do have is personality disorders, such as depression. Well, let me tell you, if a guy does go around acting suicidal and has guns, he won't get to keep those guns if the police hear about it.

Get that?

The gun nuts say that the gun registry was too costly -- although the money has mostly been spent. Throwing out the billions spent is like saying ''Oh, the house cost two billion to build, which is too much, so let's blow it up.''

Operating the gun registry now only accounts for some $8 million a year, chump change for the government, especially considering the cost of domestic violence. How much does it cost to try and incarcerate a killer? How much does it cost to place the children under the care of social services?

What's the worth of a woman?

If the gun registry costs $8 million a year, which is the most oft-cited figure, and 16 women are killed by rifles per year, that's $500,000 per woman. Speaking for myself, I think that a woman's life is worth at least that much.

Do you Keith?

2. That, despite all the evidence, there are still people out there who claim that the Dec. 6 shooter was just a lone madman -- who had a violent father, by the way -- and that the massacre had nothing to do with feminism.

Give me a break.

Not only did he deliberately separate men from women, he also wrote this before he packed up his arsenal and shot up the school. Some excerpts:

Would you note that if I commit suicide today 89-12-06 it is not for economic reasons (for I have waited until I exhausted all my financial means, even refusing jobs) but for political reasons. Because I have decided to send the feminists, who have always ruined my life, to their Maker.

<CLIP>

Being rather backward-looking by nature (except for science), the feminists have always enraged me. They want to keep the advantages of women (e.g. cheaper insurance, extended maternity leave preceded by a preventative leave, etc.) while seizing for themselves those of men.

Gee. Sounds familiar. Too familiar.

Happy St. Marc's Day

December 6 is celebrated around the world in English speaking countries as

International Marc Lepine Day

It seem that almost every week some distraught suicidal young man takes a rifle or pistol and shoots people at a school, a shopping mall, or a city. These are called horrible events by our media, and invariably used as reasons to hate men by the feminists, their blue gun thug Gestapo, and their talking head lackeys. The young men are almost always emotionally distraught, driven to desperation by a feminazi society that has tried to trample him into dust.

Every year, every month, every day, every hour, men are driven to suicide by the evil feminazi hate machine...

And:

Marc Lepine tells women and feminists YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE MONTERS ANYMORE. He tells these thousands of women and feminists who have stolen their partner's house, their car, their money, he tells those who have stolen their ex-husband's children, their jobs and drove them to suicide: STOP TO BE MONSTERS, stop to secretly dream of killing men and planning gendercide, and we will perhaps begin again to love you some day. This is a powerful message, A MESSAGE OF LOVE, worthy of a new Christ.

I guess the Dec. 6 shooter was not such a loner, hunh?

Yes, dear reader, there are men out there who consider the killer to be a hero.

I wonder if those guys have guns.

One more thing: Here's some mealy-mouthed memorializing on the part of Helena Guergis, the Minister of State for the Status of Women, in today's National Post. It's almost all about what those foreigners do. Nothing about what good old boy Canadians with their guns do.

Just saying.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Judy Rebick adds this:

I am writing this from Montreal where I am attending a colloquium to examine the massacre twenty years later. Journalist Francine Pelletier,  who was one of the women on the hit list found in his suicide note,  told the hundreds of women attending that she now believes this was a political act, an anti-feminist act, different than the every day incidents of violence against women.  “If he had wanted to target women, he would have gone to a nursing school,’ she said. “He was targeting women who had the audacity to want to do a man’s job.” Dominique Payette of Laval University agreed calling it a classical act of terrorism designed to strike fear in the hearts of women not so different than the Taliban throwing acid in the faces of little girls who want to go school.

 

I think it was both an act of terrorism and an extreme form of the violence women face every day.  As one participant said in the discussion, male violence in intimate relationships increases when the woman tries to become more independent.  It is used to keep women in their place through fear.

 Please read the whole thing.

FED UP WOMAN DATE: Sooey makes the point over in Cynic's comments that the killer's suicide note says almost nothing ''men's rights'' activists and even well-known pundits make on a routine basis.

An extract from his suicide note:

"Even if the Mad Killer epithet will be attributed to me by the media, I consider myself a rational erudite that only the arrival of the Grim Reaper has forced to take extreme acts. For why persevere to exist if it is only to please the government. Being rather backward-looking by nature (except for science), the feminists have always enraged me. They want to keep the advantages of women (e.g. cheaper insurance, extended maternity leave preceded by a preventative leave, etc.) while seizing for themselves those of men."

Sounds like any number of Feminist-hating pundits these days to me.

Er, except for that Grim Reaper bit, of course. That's pretty out there.

Party Line Dancers

Reader Heather posted this in the comments on SOWwatch below. I think it deserves its own post.

''Defenceless persons?''

Only because your government likes it that way, Bub.

Canada appears to be dragging its heels in responding to a demand from a United Nations human-rights panel. It probably won’t be until December 2014 that the country will file its next report regarding its compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, an international treaty ratified in 1981.

However, when the CEDAW committee met in Geneva in 2008, the panel was so concerned about poverty and violence here that it asked Canada to report within one year—and not wait until its next scheduled report in 2014—about how it is dealing with these issues. The UN panel made the request when it released its observations on Canada’s treaty compliance on November 7, 2008.

According to women’s-rights advocate Shelagh Day, the report is due by the end of November. But the codirector of the Poverty and Human Rights Centre and member of the B.C. CEDAW monitoring group says she doubts that Canada has much to say.

And lookee here. No report. None here either. Don't even bother looking here.

Actually, all Canada had to say was "Eliminate the long-gun registry!''  That's the one formed partly as a result of the hard lobbying by the families of the Ecole Polytechnique massacre victims. (It must be noted that a number of Liberal and NDP MPs also voted to throw women under the gun bus.)

A survivor of the murderous rampage at the Ecole polytechnique says the government will have blood on its hands if the controversial federal gun registry dies and there is a spike in firearm-related killings.

Heidi Rathjen, a former engineering student at the school, was among those who worked to reform Canada's gun laws and set up the registry in the wake of Marc Lepine's attack on the school on Dec. 6, 1989.

"I feel that what the Conservatives are doing, especially at this time, is a slap in the face to the victims of the Dec. 6 massacre and all victims of gun-related crimes," she said on the eve of the tragedy's 20th anniversary.

"What does it say about all future gun victims? If this goes through and the registry is abolished and gun-related murders and crimes go back up, the Conservatives will have blood on their hands."

<SNIP>

Rathjen said she has spoken to some of the families of the Polytechnique victims and said they are "devastated, terrified that this is going to go through."

She had scathing words for Ignatieff and NDP Leader Jack Layton, saying they demonstrated a "complete lack of leadership on this issue, allowing a free vote on what they absolutely knew was a disguised government bill."

She said the Liberals and NDP actions were a "betrayal" of the two parties' commitment to victims of violence and women.

"What good are all these wonderful Liberal values, NDP values if you can't stand up when it really counts? Words are just words. It's action that counts."

Rathjen, who joined an anti-tobacco organization in Montreal after the gun legislation was passed, said she'll rejoin the fight to help the Coalition for Gun Control to protect the registry, which she says has been an unrelenting target of misinformation.

She said former students are getting organized and will head to Ottawa for hearings on the bill.

Rathjen did have praise for the Bloc Quebecois, which she said had shown unstinting support for the registry.

Yes, Status of Women has tossed a few million at shelters, which are bursting at the seams with some 70,000 women and children. But that money can't make up for how the Harpies removed advocacy mechanisms, nor can it compensate for how many women are suffering in isolation in homes where there are guns.

What's more, $22 million over three years can't even begin to make a dent in violence prevention. What's needed is ongoing support to help make women independent of abusive partners.

Which brings us to today's treeware column, where the gun nuts are weighing in in the comments section. Here it is, with some linky freshness.

If it weren't so hypocritical, it would be hysterical.

On Wednesday Tuesday, at a Parliament Hill ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the Dec. 6 massacre at Montreal's L'École Polytechnique, Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner co-starred in Status of Women minister Helena Guergis's show of sympathy.

Bad enough that, last month, Guergis voted for Bill C-391, the legislation that aims to kill the long-gun registry and Hoeppner was the one to introduce it in the House.

No wonder that Status of Women committee members Anita Neville (L-Winnipeg South Centre), Irene Mathyssen (NDP-London- Fanshawe) and the Bloc's warrior queen of women's rights, Nicole Demers (Laval), boycotted the ceremony.

As Neville told me Wednesday, "The Conservatives' record on women has just been abominable.''

Never mind that, since the registry was introduced in the mid-'90s, the number of women killed by their rifle-wielding partners has dropped significantly. But, even with the registry, Statistics Canada reports, one out of three femicide victims is still killed by a rifle-wielding partner.

It was in the wake of that terrible night in December, when that misogynist shooter targeted female engineering students, killing 14 women and injuring 10 more, as well as four men, that the former Conservative government, the one we used to call Progressive, struck a task force to look into violence against women.

For a frigid few days, I followed the panel around rural Quebec, where it heard horror stories from women whose partners took advantage of their isolation to terrorize and torture them.

There were testimonies from local social services groups recounting terrible murders. Meanwhile, back in the Montreal area, women were being picked off at an alarming rate by former spouses, even those served with restraining orders.

One of the things that many of the gun nuts espouse is more guns – for women. As they say, "You can't rape a .38.''

That may be true if you're walking your dog or coming home from work late at night, but it's going to land you a murder charge if you pull the trigger while being "date raped.''

In any case, it's pretty tough to be packing, say, in an aerobics class, especially when the assassin sneaks in, turns off the lights and starts firing – which is what happened in Pittsburgh this summer when three women were killed and many others injured.

What's more, there's no guarantee that an abused wife could actually get a gun, or not get it used against her.

Research shows that the determining factor in preventing most violence against women is helping them to be economically independent, through secure employment with appropriate benefits and fair wages, or decent rates of welfare, adequate social housing and daycare.

Little of which is forthcoming from the Conservative government.

That said, it has bumped up funding to some shelters this year. But that does nothing to head off violence.

In fact, according to Neville, "Their whole focus on violence against women is what one colleague refers to as `after the gavel.' That means putting more people in jail, harsher sentences, mandatory minimums, that kind of thing.''

Or as Hoeppner recently said in committee: "The best thing we can do to protect women is to make sure that people who commit crimes against them go to jail and stay there for as long as they need to." Which, not only closes the slammer door after the deed has been done, it does nothing to get women out of dangerous situations and into self-sufficient lives.

As for Guergis, well, although her resumé includes many years of volunteering at Barrie's Rape Crisis Centre, she just tiptoes the party line.

With girlfriends like these, who needs enemies?

Not much to add but this: In committee yesterday, Hoeppner complained at the start of proceedings.

It would be as if, if people disagree with the long gun registry, they have every right to disagree with it, but to politicize this remembrance is wrong. To demonize me and to say that I don't care about women and that somehow I don't have the right to be at that event, and I was told that by every party, everybody that's at this table—

Which is when the chair, Liberal MP Hedy Fry, shot her down.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Emily has more.

SOWwatch

Seriously. Helena Guergis, the Conservative Minister of State for the Status of Women? 

Don't make me laugh.

And, with that, a new feature kids, right here on Broadsides! The adventures of Party Girl Guergis in her defence of women's status which, judging by her party's record, is to be lowered at every opportunity.

Example, from last week's Question Period in the wake of Saskatoon MP Maurice Vellacott's fabulations about women's reproductive choices. This exchange between Bloc MP Nicole Demers and Guergis. Boldface is by moi.

Nicole Demers (Laval, QC, BQ): Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister responsible for Status of Women refused to denounce the unacceptable statements made by a Conservative MP who implied that abortions contribute to the development of breast cancer. Besides being wrong medically, this assertion is meant to make women feel guilty. We would expect that the minister would defend women and the right to abortion with vigour rather than saying things worthy of Sarah Palin. When will the minister stop protecting the dinosaurs in her party to the detriment of women's right?

Hon. Helena Guergis (Minister of State for Status of Women): --Very clearly in the house yesterday, this member is actually fully aware that there are elected members in this house who have said very similar things at different times. Members in this house represent their constituencies and they are free to have any opinion that they choose to. It does not mean it represents the government. But please let me highlight one of our most recent achievements to protect women across the country. Recently we revised our citizenship guide. I would like to recognize the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration for the great work he's done in specifically outlining that barbaric practices like female genital mutilation are not tolerated in Canada.

Ya think? I mean, until the revision of the citizenship guide, parents could pop in with their terrified daughters at any old corner store and have her lady parts chopped up while all the rest of us turned a blind eye. Wow. Thanks Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. I don't know where Canadian women would be without you and your swell woman-loving government to defend us from the incoming barbarians.

But what about those resident dinosaurs, hunh?

Okay, so now that you get how this is gonna go, we fast forward to today's Question Period (again, boldface by me):

Hon. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, more than 520 aboriginal women and girls have gone missing or have been murdered in this country. Aboriginal women need to feel safe and they need to know they are being heard. The government talks about being tough on crime but refuses to act. It refuses to launch a complete public investigation. What will it take? How many more women will have to go missing? When will it launch a comprehensive, national, public investigation?
   
Hon. Helena Guergis (Minister of State (Status of Women), CPC): Mr. Speaker, the member is well aware that we are supporting Sisters in Spirit, which is led by the Native Women's Association of Canada, as it should be. It is a five year, multi-research project that our government supports and financially backs. We are in fact looking at exploring the next options. In fact the president for NWAC has recently said that she knows that I am supportive and that we are working together on a regular basis to look to the future.

Aboriginal women are being picked off like ducks in Dick Cheney's gunsights and all the government can do is ''look'' at exploring options? Gee, thanks Madame Minister. Thanks for nothing.

Oh and thanks for voting to get rid of the long-gun registry. And let's not forget your support of Bill C-484, which the government said was reopening the abortion debate.

Stay tuned right here for more non sequiturs and political bafflegab from your not-so-woman-friendly Conservative government woman defender.

H/T to the brilliant Pale for the image.

Spawn of the Dark Ages

This is fresh off the turnip truck:

FREDERICTON – A Tory member of the New Brunswick legislature has apologized for writing on his Facebook page that women should make more babies.

In responding to the provincial budget Tuesday, Carl Urquhart posted on Facebook: "Another Liberal budget ... Another $1 billion on the debt by March ... Girls we need more babies or we will never be able to support our future."

Liberal member Joan MacAlpine-Stiles told the legislature Wednesday that she found the comment offensive.

"To suggest to New Brunswick's young women that their only role in society and their only contribution to the New Brunswick economy is to have babies is demeaning and outdated thinking," she said.

"Society has evolved to recognize all the contributions women make and it's a shame the member for York hasn't evolved at the same pace."

Note that this is about a provincial legislature member.

But it does speak to the mindset of many who are card-carrying Conservatives at any level.

Which brings us to today's treeware column. (I added some links.)

Yeah, yeah.

Last year, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he doesn't "intend to open the abortion issue."

But he has also promised a lot of other things. "Merit-based'' political appointments. No recession. More government accountability. No recession. Fixed election dates. No recession.

All those words about everything from the federal deficit to daycare spaces ... and nothing.

That's why I don't believe him when he talks about reopening the abortion debate. Not that it has ever really been closed.

His credibility isn't helped by Conservative caucus members who constantly harp on the subject by introducing private member's bills, making speeches, attending pro-life rallies and putting out news releases.

Which brings us to the member of Parliament for Saskatoon- Wanuskewin. Maurice Vellacott is past co-chair of the Pro-Life Caucus, an unabashed opponent of gay rights, and so vindictive in his attack on former Conservative-converted-to-Liberal MP Belinda Stronach that he used the "prostitute'' word.

Vellacott stepped in it once again last month when he put out a release commending local doctors for "reducing the availability of abortion in our city." It came in response to news that Saskatoon women had to leave town to terminate their pregnancies.

Now, as if this weren't unsympathetic enough to the plight of scared teenagers and desperate women, Vellacott added that "a growing body of research reveals significant health problems caused by abortion, including a greater risk of breast cancer, cervical lacerations and injury, uterine perforations, hemorrhage, and serious infection."

This is not only incorrect, it's pure propaganda espoused by those who would rather that pregnant women act as walking incubators for all those couples on adoption waiting lists.

Both the Canadian and American cancer societies dismiss the correlation between cancer and abortion. Furthermore, there is no "growing body of research" on the matter. And the Mayo Clinic debunks any connection between abortion and infertility.

It's not the first time Vellacott has made such claims: In 2006, he and Paul Steckle, the former Liberal MP for Huron-Bruce, promoted the idea that "the sexual revolution and the women's liberation movement are largely responsible for the rampant breast cancer we see today."

Whores and feminazis brought it on themselves.

Despite Harper's promise not to reignite the very hot abortion debate, last week there was no apology for Vellacott's claims by the Prime Minister or even Helen Guergis, Minister of State for the Status of Women.

Coincidentally, or not, all this happened just as the Ottawa-based "educational" LifeCanada issued its survey on attitudes toward abortion. "For the ninth year in a row, a majority of Canadians have rejected the status quo on abortion in this country," its statement said. "Over half say there should be legal protection for human life before birth and over two-thirds say abortions should only be paid for by taxpayers in medical emergencies or in cases of rape or incest."

But a closer look at the numbers reveals that only 30 per cent of us feel there should be no abortion rights. The rest say that abortion should be available only up to various trimesters.

As for who pays, the number has been virtually flat since 2002. (And, let's not forget, removing health care-funded abortion would only punish the poor.) As Dr. Delores Doherty, LifeCanada's president, told me, "Even though year after year people are saying they want some controls on abortion, they want some protection for the unborn, it still doesn't translate into action from the government."

There by the grace of a few more seats in the House.

So, according to polls, just how far from a Harper majority are we?

So, once again, the Cons exposed their not-so-secret playbook in reproductive rights.

It's getting to be a habit.

Now, some would say that Vellacott is just one guy and he doesn't represent the entire caucus. True. But lets look at the record, shall we? Bill C-484. Resolution 213.  This. This. And this. Rod Bruinooge. And let us not forget about this.

Vellacott took it to a whole other level though, spouting off about how choice is all about empowering predatory men instead of women who want to control their own lives, health and destinies.

Pro-life feminists have also come to see abortion as part of a male agenda to have women more sexually available. With widespread abortion access, the male partner also has come to think that he can blame the woman if she chooses not to have an abortion after an unplanned pregnancy.

Oh yeah. Think of the women. 

Shorter Maurice Vellacott: Women should oppose abortion because men are superficial jerks who only think of their own pleasure.

Snicker.

Oh, and here's a guy who despises feminists, unless they're ''pro-life feminists.''

While it's true that many women are targeted for extra abuse by husbands who don't want to compete with a child for their partners' attention, to the point where femicide is one of the leading causes of death during pregnancy, most women CHOOSE to terminate their pregnancies for other reasons -- too many children already, an insecure economic situation, etc.

Hey, has Vellacott ever spoken out against violence against women?

Why yes. Yes he has. But, based on my extensive Googling, only when they're acting as the living hardware units for the ''unborn.'' Or when they're female fetuses.

Maurice Vellacott. Long on long guns. Short on sympathy for women.

Special shout-out to Emily for the photo illustration of Vellacott and to Pale for the video from last year's election campaign.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: How could I forget this?