Helping women and children in the North... a bake sale at a time.

The Status of Women cuts that the UnReal women of Canada so lauded and cheered about like a bunch of mindless maroons, the ones that killed NAWL funding, have had an even harsher effect in the real great white north.

Women in the Yukon are 2.9 times more likely to experience sexual abuse, or be killed by a spouse than women in other parts of Canada. The Organizations that seek to help them are being forced to scramble for alternate funds through bake sales and garage sales.

There are few corporations or alternate sources of funding. The Yukon Status of Women Council is advocacy and research based, believing in systemic change for the good of all. We are not eligible for charitable status, and we know that donors prefer organizations that can issue tax receipts.

Canceled programs, closed shelters, less of everything that now has to go so much further. The income gap, like in other parts of Canada is widening. But in the Yukon, there are many other considerations, that its hard to grasp for those of us who live near big cities in the more temperate parts of Canada.

Women and children's homelessness is increasing in an unforgiving and hostile environment. Isolation, a harsh climate, lack of resources, a high cost of living, a high rate of social issues, limited opportunities for employment, the legacy of residential schools and colonization – all of these things are our facts of life.

In last weeks rabble, there was another article about the SWC cuts, Fighting Harper with a dose of his own medicine about the standpoint of one of Harper's closest advisor's in that last election. If you are reading this, and know any fence sitting conservatives out there, send them this link.

Those are the people we need to reach. The Conservative party of today, are not your father's conservatives.

Flanagan calls funding cuts to Status of Women Canada and the elimination of the Court Challenges Program a “nice step,” asserting without equivocation that Conservatives will “defund” all equality-seeking groups – with feminists at the top of the list. He goes further, clarifying that Conservatives also plan to choke-off these groups’ supposedly privileged access to government by, for example, denying “meetings with ministers.” But for strategic reasons, Flanagan notes, this will all happen incrementally. To avoid the perception of mean-spirited retribution, he says, “incrementalism is the way to go.”

Cut by cut. Bleed slowly all programs that reach out to women and children to death. Cut off all avenues of funding and outreach. Sociopathic? There is no escape.

This is not a partisan rant or a cooked-up conspiracy theory; it is the solemn gospel of Harper’s leading strategist.

Besides confirming that Harper and his team are ideologues cloaked as moderates in an electoral game, what can women’s groups learn from Flanagan’s candid comments?

This book from Flanagan, is a real Goddess-send. As the rabble article suggests, how can we learn from it? And how can we use it to squash the Neoliberal tide?

The Harper Conservatives, actively working to make Women and children homeless since 2006.