Sept. 19, 2006: #3

New Brunswick has a Liberal majority of MLA's but a smaller percentage of the vote than the Conservatives

NB Election: "a new electoral map may have favoured the Liberals"
cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics
/2006/08/10/1733928-cp.html

[....] Even though they lost the election, the Tories received more votes, garnering 48 per cent to 47 for the victors. The NDP's popular vote was cut in half from the 2003 election to five per cent. [....]

Meanwhile, the pundits concluded that a new electoral map may have favoured the Liberals, given the fact they would have won the last election had the new ridings been in place then. [....]

Gerrymandering of electoral district boundaries? I'm shocked, I say, shocked!




Women who do not represent many female citizens

It was reported that there were plans to confront then-NB Premier Lord, pre-election, at every stop by women demanding pay equity. They planned to do the same with the Liberal leader; the NDP was not mentioned. I looked a little further into them. Who are they and who fund(s) them?

"The Coalition for Pay Equity is founded in the work of the Fédération des Dames d’Acadie, the Women’s Union for Pay Equity and the New-Brunswick Committee of the World March of Women 2000. On June 16, 2001, the Women’s Union became the Coalition for Pay Equity."
www.ceibathurst.com/fda

www.ceibathurst.com/fda created the Women’s Union for Pay Equity. Underlying the creation of the Women’s Union, was The Fédération des dames d’Acadie’s concern with poverty amongst women – poverty partly resulting from a lack of pay equity.

In February 1999, the New-Brunswick Committee of the World March of Women 2000 was created ( www.ffq.qc.ca/marche2000 ). The Committee put forward two demands with regards to women’s rights: pay equity and the elimination of violence against women. In the context of the World March of Women 2000 a petition in favour of pay equity legislation succeeded in gathering some 30,000 signatures. The petition was submitted to the provincial government on October 13, 2000. [....]

The Coalition has a current membership of 300 individuals. Its member organisations also represent an important number of New-Brunswick citizens. Since its creation, the Coalition has been active in lobbying the government, political parties and private sector and in raising public awareness on pay equity issues. [....]

They are a self-selected group, not charged by women in any vote to represent them. Who decided they could represent other women with no vote from those women?



Pay Equity Review Resources
Note: website Last Updated: 2005-11-18 -- ex-PM Paul Martin era

Apparently, these are interchangeable: Pay Equity Commissions/Human Rights Commissions

Québec - Conseil du statut de la femme (French only)

Included are:

Non-Governmental Organizations

* Coalition for Pay Equity
* Conseil d'intervention pour l'accès des femmes au travail (French only)
* Equal Pay Coalition
* National Action Committee on the Status of Women
* National Association of Women and the Law
* Saskatchewan Pay Equity Coalition

International
[....]

* Covenants and International Agreements
* Universal Declaration of Human Rights
* Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951
* International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
* International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
* Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
* Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women
* Beijing Platform for Action [United Nations]
* Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development and Programme of Action of the World *
* Summit for Social Development

Further actions and initiatives to implement the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action

Further initiatives for social development [whose social development?]

SoW's Counter-attack on any efforts to get rid of this unrepresentative group, Aug. 7, 2006, "COUNTER-ATTACK BY FEMINISTS"
www.realwomenca.com/alerts.htm

Since 1973, the federal Status of Women has given millions of dollars to feminist only groups and promoted feminist policies on the false premise that women in Canada are victims of a patriarchal society. Although some women may be victims, the vast majority of Canadian women are perfectly able and are capable of making their own decisions about their lives. They do not need nor want the Status of Women to speak on their behalf. [....]

The theme of these many letters is that "shelters for abused women and children protect them from the violence." (No mention of the studies which indicate that half of domestic violence is instigated by the women.) The letters also claim that women need the support of the Status of Women to work for pay equity, marital property and senior women's income, etc.


Never is it mentioned that the Status of Women, including women's shelters themselves, are matters of provincial jurisdiction only. They do not fall within federal jurisdiction and there is no reason why the federal government is funding so generously these provincial issues and organizations. Further, there is no reason why the Status of Women portfolio is included in the Cabinet. [....]

Write to your MP and the PM if you agree.




Are you surprised?

B.C. auditor general: 2010 Games costs almost double promise , Wendy Cox, Sept. 15, 06
cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/
2006/09/14/1839102-cp.html

[....] The auditor general counted such things as the upgrade to the highway between Whistler and Vancouver, which he pegs at $775 million.

He noted the winding, often deadly, Sea to Sky highway was a matter of specific concern to the International Olympic Committee before it awarded the Games to Vancouver.

"The province and the bid corporation had identified the timely completion of the upgrade project as being essential to Vancouver being named the host city," van Iersel wrote.

The province doesn't include the highway, or several other things, in its calculations. Even the government's estimate of how much the highway upgrade will cost is significantly lower than van Iersel's - $600 million versus $775 million.

"Would the Sea to Sky highway upgrades have taken place if we had not won the right to stage the Olympic games? The answer is yes," said Hansen. "Had we not won the Games, guess what, that project would have been built." [....]

Ignatieff has disqualified himself , Andrew Coyne, National Post, September 16, 2006
www.forumsvibe.com/elwoodpdowd/
viewtopic.php?t=298&mforum=elwoodpdowd

[....] For it isn't only Quebec that Michael Ignatieff proposes should be constitutionally recognized as a "nation," but also aboriginal groups -- sorry, "the indigenous nations of Canada" -- at last count some 600 in all. If Mr. Ignatieff gets his way, the historically invalid, politically unworkable theory of Canada as a "multinational" federation, long the private vice of political science departments, would be enshrined in law for all time. From multiculturalism to multinationalism, in one self-abnegating hop.

About the only people whose nationhood he seems unprepared to recognize is, well, Canadians. Rather, he recommends with some warmth a new slogan for Quebecers to say ("with pride"): Le Quebec est ma nation, le Canada est mon pays. This is an advance on that old bromide that Quebecers should not be forced to choose between the Canadian and Quebec nations. Now it appears there is no choice to be made. Quebec is a nation. Canada is merely a country, a state, a superstructure -- a shell.

So: What if the interests of the two conflict? What if the "nation" calls on Quebecers to do one thing, but the "country" another? Not that the country ever would, you understand: Federal politicians have not dared ask anything of Quebecers since conscription. [....]

AIDS stay-behinds fuel refugee myths, Innocent Madawo, Sept. 7, 06
www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Madawo_Innocent
/2006/09/07/1809987.html

[....] But if being HIV-positive is the reason they face political persecution and/or human rights violations in their countries, then they can claim it as the reason they were being persecuted. [The Catch 22 for us?]

What brought them here is their activism. Most of them are health workers, counsellors, teachers and others whose work with HIV/AIDS sufferers led them to being ostracized by their communities and stigmatized as people of loose morals.
The main reason they are being persecuted is that they advocate -- often to women and children -- the use of condoms and other safe-sex devices, putting them in conflict with taboos in their home countries.

These 150 stay-behinds are not guaranteed anything that is not given to other refugees. They, too, can be sent back home if their claims are only based on the fact that they have AIDS or HIV. [....]

Until they are accepted as refugees, they are not guaranteed anything BUT, once granted refugee status, there is the potential that they will cost Canada's health care system an inordinate amount of health dollars for their care because most of them have HIV/AIDS. They stayed here not because of ostracism nor stigmatization, but because they get free health care. In other words, Canadians will pay out of their tax dollars for the health care and medication of what are illegal aliens who are now claiming refugee status and who arrived with HIV/AIDS.