On March 1, 1985, Secretary of State Walter McLean (PC Waterloo), Minister in charge of the status of Woman, appointed NDP-worker Sylvia Gold to a seven-year term as president of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Woman. The appointment was highly lauded by pro-abortion feminists.

Sylvia Gold

It was hailed by MP Lucie Pepin, head of the Advisory Council until her election to the House of Commons on September 4, 1984; Chaviva Hosek, president of the Advisory Council’s more radical, the National Action Committee on the Council of Women (NAC); and Susan Vander Voet, executive director of the Canadian Congress of Learning Opportunities. (The latter organization recently encouraged the Secretary of State to continue to deny funding to the pro-family organization, R.E.A.L. Women.)

Montreal-born Gold, who is bilingual, became executive assistant to the Montreal Teachers’ Association in 1975, as director of professional development services. She served on the executive of the Ottawa Center NDP riding association from 1978 to 1981.

Her condition for accepting the Status of Women appointment, she said, was autonomy for the wholly-government-subsidized Advisory Council. The 27-member Council has a $2.4 million budget in the coming fiscal year. Ms Gold’s salary is in the $56,640-$66,660 range.

A mother of three children aged 18 to 26, the former elementary and high school teacher describes herself as a feminist almost since childhood, according to Jackie Smith from the Toronto Star, (March 7). Gold supports “equal pay for work of equal value,” affirmative action programmers and every woman’s right to abortion.

Said Gold, according to Smith: abortion should be removed from the criminal code and left as a matter between a woman and a doctor. “For some women it is a desperate need and it must be available to them.”

Last fall, the Mulroney government appointed Stephen Lewis, former Ontario NDP leader, as Canada’s ambassador to the secularist society. Then, as now, the appointment was hailed by the NDP.

MP Lynn McDonald (NDP Broadview-Greenwood), speaking on behalf of her party, expressed pleasure at “the appointment of a progressive woman” and expressed hope that the 13 vacancies on the council might be filled with similar appointments drawn from all ranks of society. (Hansard, March 1)