The federal budget tabled by Finance Minister Don Mazankowski in late February has shown once again that feminists have nothing to fear from the Mulroney government.

Startled

In a move that must have startled many Tory back-benchers, the budget for the Status Of Women Co-ordination Office shot up from $3.98 million to $10.24 million, a 157 per cent increase.  The budget for “professional and special services” alone, more than doubled from just over a million dollars in 1990-91 to an estimated 2.5 million in 1992-93.

As part of its stated plans for 1992-93, Status Of Women Canada has pledged to “work with the Department of Justice, and its provincial and territorial counterparts, to promote gender equality in the justice system.”

Gender Equality

The Department Of Justice estimated a $20 million budget increase for the commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs.  This is the body responsible for federal judges’ salaries.  It is also responsible for gender equality training of new judges.

In its list of goals for 1992-93, the Justice Department stated that it wishes to ensure “provision of contribution funding to support gender equality in the law and justice system…”  In the new fiscal year, the department also plans to develop “a global review of family and youth legal policy issues” as they relate to “marital and family status.”

Salaries, wages and other related costs for the Department of Multiculturalism and Citizenship soared in the budget estimates from 15 to 45.5 million.

In 1991-92, this federal department was heavily involved in promoting initiatives related to the endorsement of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Pro-family groups have roundly criticized the Convention because its provisions would severely restrict parental freedoms.  In countries which ratify the Convention, parents would not be able to interfere with their children’s “right” to freedom of religion (which may involved joining a cult, for example) or family planning education and services (which would most certainly imply contraception and abortion).

Court Challenges Program

The announcement that funding for the Court Challenges Program had been cut caused much public wringing of hands amongst radical feminists, homosexuals and a sympathetic media.  court The Court Challenges Program is part of Multiculturalism and Citizenship, and provides public money for LEAF, the feminist-dominated Legal Educational and Action Fund.  This organization had a heavy influence on the wording of the equality-rights sections (15 and 28) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

LEAF also used public money from the Court challenges Program to present radical feminist arguments against the rights of the unborn child in Sullivan and Lemay.

In this case the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a baby whose head was visible, but whose body was still inside the mother, was not a person under the law and could not be considered as a human being under the law of the land.

EGALE (Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere) has also received money from the court Challenges Program.  Graham Haig, an Ottawa homosexual activist who successfully challenged the Canadian Human Rights Act on the grounds that it failed to include “sexual orientation” in its list of prohibited grounds for discrimination, had his legal expenses paid for under this program.

The Interim has learned, however, that the Court Challenges Program is far from dead.

An aide to pro-life Senator Stanley Haidasz made extensive inquiries since the budget was tabled.  Has found that according to the official estimates, the program will receive at least one million dollars in 1992-93.

The Interim’s source quoted government lawyer Françoise Webster as saying that the program will continue for at least two more years and will spend approximately four million on legal cases which are already in process.

Ms. Webster, who is a legal counsel for the human rights sections of the Secretary of State and Multiculturalism and Citizenship, further stated that four cases related to special homosexual rights are in the works.

The same source also contacted the office of the Court challenges Program directly.  He found that the office was still in full operation and was still in full operation and was told by Michelle Smith, a financial administrator, that at least $3 million is yet to be spent.

LEAF

It should also be noted that such organizations as LEAF will not be eliminated, even if all federal funding is cut off.  The provinces provide public money to such groups, as do many trade unions.

Judy Anderson, national president of REAL Women, discovered that the Federation of Women Teachers’ Associations of Ontario (FWTAO) recently gave $100,000 to LEAF.  In 1985 Ian Scott, Ontario’s Attorney-General in the former Liberal government of Premier David Peterson, donated $1 million.

Studio ‘D’

A few days before the federal budget was tabled in the House of Commons, the Catholic Civil Rights League received figures of the amount of tax money that has been given by the Mulroney government to Studio ‘D,’ the radical feminist section of the National Film Board (NFB).  Responding to an official inquiry from Liberal MP Don Boudria, the Ministry of communications stated that Studio ‘D’ received just under $15 million from 1985 until the spring of 1991.

The notorious anti-Catholic and witchcraft-promoting “Women and Spirituality” series (which includes the Goddness Remembered, the Burning Times, and Full Circle) has so far been funded to the tune of $1, 785,212.