A new book from Janine Brody and Isabella Bakker on gender equity, budgets and public policy – Where Are the Women?
Contemporary Canadian fiscal and social policy reforms have been accompanied by the progressive disappearance of the gendered subject, both in discourse and practice. Indeed, the minority Conservative government of Stephen Harper has gone so far as to declare that the goal of gender equity has been achieved in Canada. However, as Brodie and Bakker argue in Where Are the Women? Gender Equity, Budgets and Canadian Public Policy, not only has the goal of gender equality not been met but the relentless attack on federal social programs over the past decade has actually undermined gender equity, as well as the well-being of Canadian women, especially the most vulnerable.
In fact the degendering of public policy and the erasure of the goal of gender equity from the policy process has been a long-standing project, reaching all the way back to the mid-1990s. Brodie and Bakker describe how over this period there has developed a fundamental disconnect—a policy incoherence—within Canadian government. On the one hand, Canadian governments have been publicly committing themselves to working towards gender equality goals. On the other, these same governments have been subverting their own progress by giving priority to supposedly “gender-neutral” market-based policies at the expense of all other social priorities.
In Where Are the Women? Brodie and Bakker focus on five dimensions of the process of degendering of contemporary Canadian public policy. Chapter 2 examines major federal social policy initiatives since the mid-1990s, and their implications for different groups of women. Chapter 3 focuses on the fragmentation and erosion of Canada’s social assistance regime and considers the implications of these processes for gender equality. Chapter 4 documents the degendering of policy capacity, both within and outside of government, and how such changes stand in contrast to the international and national commitments made by a series of Canadian governments. Chapter 5 considers how budget planning in all its aspects has become an increasingly important component of social policy capacity, and how the veil of budget secrecy has been adopted as a mechanism to obscure the fiscalization of social policy. Finally, a series of recommendations related to the governance of fiscal and social policy are provided in Chapter 6, while Chapter 7 offers as a postscript a description of the significant changes to the position of gender equity in Canada following the election of the Harper Conservative government.
I wrote The Shock Doctrine in the hopes that it would make us all better prepared for the next big shock. Well, that shock has certainly arrived, along with gloves-off attempts to use it to push through radical pro-corporate policies (which of course will further enrich the very players who created the market crisis in the first place…).
The best summary of how the right plans to use the economic crisis to push through their policy wish list comes from Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. On Sunday, Gingrich laid out 18 policy prescriptions for Congress to take in order to “return to a Reagan-Thatcher policy of economic growth through fundamental reforms.” In the midst of this economic crisis, he is actually demanding the repeal of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which would lead to further deregulation of the financial industry. Gingrich is also calling for reforming the education system to allow “competition” (a.k.a. vouchers), strengthening border enforcement, cutting corporate taxes and his signature move: allowing offshore drilling.
It would be a grave mistake to underestimate the right’s ability to use this crisis — created by deregulation and privatization — to demand more of the same.
Evening comes on and the hills thicken;
red and yellow bleaching out of the leaves.
The chill pines grow their shadows.
Below them the water stills itself,
a sunset shivering in it.
One more going down to join the others.
Now the lake expands
and closes in, both.
The blackness that keeps itself
under the surface in daytime
emerges from it like mist
or as mist.
Distance vanishes, the absence
of distance pushes against the eyes.
There is no seeing the lake,
only the outlines of the hills
which are almost identical,
familiar to me as sleep,
shores unfolding upon shores
in their contours of slowed breathing.
It is touch I go by,
the boat like a hand feeling
through shoals and among
dead trees, over the boulders
lifting unseen, layer
on layer of drowned time falling away.
This is how I learned to steer
through darkness by no stars.
While listening to a “history of rock” type music station tonight, I heard the rhythm of the old 6/8 “oom pah pah ” waltz creeping in on a few of the older songs. Here’s a big mouthful of oom pah pah from the song by the same name from Oliver! Wherein Nancy saves Oliver by singin’ and dancin’.
And here’s some “oom pah pah” by the Beatles in “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”. The verses are in 6/8 oom pah pah time, while the chorus switches to 4/4 time. Y’all know how this song got its name, right? BTW, very cool video.
I want your hand to be placed on my heart, and come,
I want the palm of your hand on my heart, for it to be placed on me.
Before you come I shall light a fire and I shall await
Your coming patiently. I want the big fire.
To be alight all night, and voices in the silence of this fire
To be heard only as we once heard the sound of the sea,
For your shoulder, hand, arm to be put on my heart,
And for the fire to be alight.
Let it snow outside, let’s not remember anyone outside.
Let the town fall into a heavy sleep, let the town sleep,
Let fathers, brothers sleep sweetly and bitterly.
Let every place, space and area be covered in white snow.
Let factories, stations, the airport sleep in peace,
Let the sky too rest in sleep, let there be no flying,
Let the yard dogs, the tramp, the bird on the wire
Be overcome by slumber, let everything surrender to slow
Sleep and peace. But let me hold your weak And white hand the whole night and have it on my heart.
Let for a moment an unknown god stop by our windows,
And let us too go to sleep, but let the fire stay alight.
A shooting outside a Scarborough school yesterday should turn the attention of federal politicians on the campaign trail toward a ban on handguns, Toronto’s mayor said.
Calling the shooting at Bendale Business and Technical Institute “unacceptable,” Mayor David Miller said the city, police and school board were not to blame.
“Why should Torontonians, children in this case, be faced with the kind of threats they’re seeing when the federal government could take real action?” Miller asked. “That’s why we’re calling for a national handgun ban. It’s about preventing crime by getting the guns out of the hands of the thugs who use them.
Federal party leaders also reacted to the shootings — which killed two in Toronto and one in Calgary and put three others in hospital — as gun violence threatened to explode as an election issue.
NDP leader Jack Layton pledged to introduce a comprehensive program to empower cities to eliminate handguns, except for those in the hands of law enforcement officials. “We’ve got to make sure the funding is there for the police officers that are required,” he said.
He added a new NDP campaign promise to invest $1.45 billion in child-care would also tackle the root of the problems that lead to gun-related crimes.
The Conservatives released a new TV ad yesterday featuring leader Stephen Harper saying he was “determined to crack down on crime.”
Liberal leader Stéphane Dion has not made a handgun ban an election pledge, but has vowed to ban military assault weapons from civilian use.
Everyone who has thought about the issue knows that a complete ban on hand guns will not end gang violence in Toronto and in other large Canadian cities.
But it’s an essential step to take.
Both Toronto Mayor David Miller and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty are calling for such a ban. They have the support of NDP leader Jack Layton who wants the cities to have the power to enact such a ban.
What does Stephen Harper say? He says tougher sentencesfor crimes involving guns. He scores in the negative integers for intelligence. We’ve known for years that sentence length has little deterrant effect (At best, results are mixed. See this [download pdf]). Or none. Can’t C/conservatives read? Geez. One study even noted a 3% rise in recidivism ratesfor offenders who were given longer sentences.
Crowded maximum- and medium-security facilities are holding inmates who are more violent, more addicted to drugs and more likely to suffer from mental illness than in the past. Yet fewer are getting the rehabilitation programs they need.
“Some of them leave more violent and more addicted to drugs than when they walked in the place,” says Jason Godin, Ontario president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers. “That’s pretty scary for the Canadian public.”
Recidivism rates, perhaps the best measure of the prison system’s effectiveness, show at least 40 per cent of inmates are convicted of a new offence within two years of leaving jail.
The Conservative government is considering a major reform of the system, but hasn’t announced its plans. What it has done is push through new “tough on crime” legislation most criminal justice experts warn will further strain the prison system without reducing crime.
The Tackling Violent Crime Act increases the number of gun-related crimes that automatically result in mandatory minimum sentences, increases the jail time to be served for those crimes and designates as a dangerous offender anyone convicted of three violent or sexual offences, jailing them for as long as they’re considered to be an unacceptable risk to society.
Legislative committees studying incarnations of the act repeatedly heard experts comparing these provisions to U.S. laws that resulted in spiralling costs and rates of incarceration, with little impact on crime.
Officials at Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) acknowledge the changes will increase costs and further crowd prisons.
… is SO great! As you can see by reading my posts today. And this is from there:
Pity The Nation
(After Khalil Gibran)
Pity the nation whose people are sheep
And whose shepherds mislead them
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars
Whose sages are silenced
And whose bigots rule the airwaves
Pity the nation that raises not its voice
Except to praise conquerers
And acclaim the bully as hero
And aims to rule the world
By force and by torture
Pity the nation that knows
No other language but its own
And no other culture but its own
Pity the nation whose breath is money
And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed
Pity the nation oh pity the people
who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away
My country, tears of thee
Sweet land of liberty!
–Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Contemporary Canadian fiscal and social policy reforms have been accompanied by the progressive disappearance of the gendered subject, both in discourse and practice. Indeed, the minority Conservative government of Stephen Harper has gone so far as to declare that the goal of gender equity has been achieved in Canada. However, as Brodie and Bakker argue in Where Are the Women? Gender Equity, Budgets and Canadian Public Policy, not only has the goal of gender equality not been met but the relentless attack on federal social programs over the past decade has actually undermined gender equity, as well as the well-being of Canadian women, especially the most vulnerable.
