We don’t know about you, but a couple of weeks ago the rabble staff were feeling an echo of hope when Canada marked the 20th anniversary of the Choice decision. Though recognizing that it remains unavailable in many regions of the country, Canada is one of the few countries to have legalized abortion âe” a hard fought for right that deserved recognition.

Here was a concrete example of a progressive victory that embodied that now ubiquitous slogan blowing up with the winds of change from the U.S.: yes, we can! It was inspiring, and a reason to celebrate the strength of the women’s movement in Canada and its historic achievements.

But, as we approached International Women’s Day (IWD) 2008, the antics of Parliament have had us at rabble wondering what country we are living in.

First there was the budget

Did anyone else wonder where women were in the budget? Well, Kathleen Lahey, law professor and expert on Canadian Charter rights, sure noticed the glaring gender gap in the budget.

First, Lahey highlights the paltry funding for women: “$20 million ($15 of which it already had) to ‘develop an Action Plan that will advance the equality of women throughout Canada.'” Meanwhile, there is “$50 million to help hog industry ‘adjust to new market realities.'” This contrast should certainly bring a smile to the face of any male chauvinist pig.

This funding is to “develop an Action Plan, even though the 1995 Federal Plan for Gender Equality represents the commitments Canada made at the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing) in 1995.” This plan was “developed with detailed input and active participation and development of 24 federal departments, has already led to the development and implementation of detailed departmental Gender-Based Analysis policies, hiring of personnel, and training, but which has not resulted in any concrete results.”

The only exception is CIDA, “which allocates 0.8 percent of its annual budget to gender-equality-specific programming and another 3.4 percent to projects one goal of which is stated to be ‘integration of gender issues’ into the program.”

There are “no other references to women anywhere in the budget, except for a couple of references to ‘fisherwomen’ that appear to have been inserted as a way to make it clear that the government is not being sexist by just using the term ‘fishermen’ to refer to people involved in the fishing industry.”

That is just a taste of Lahey’s report. You can listen to her comments on why women should be concerned about the budget, how the tax measures relating to corporations affect women, and more on what is the gender impact of some of the other items in the budget on our Needs No Introduction podcast.

Then along came Bill C-484

The so-called Unborn Victims of Crime Act, Bill C-484, makes it an indictable offence to cause harm to a fetus in the course of a criminal act against the mother. Despite the valiant lobbying efforts on the part of member organizations of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC) and Canadian for Choice, the bill passed, with the NDP’s Peter Stoffer voting for it, and the Liberal caucus allowing it to pass.

As ARCC points out, this bill is significant in that it is the first private member’s bill to directly attack abortion rights by attempting to return abortion to the Criminal Code. Another bothersome aspect of the bill is that it’s an obvious cynical ploy by the “Parliamentary Pro-life Caucus” âe” made up primarily of Conservative MP’s âe” to get around Harper’s promise not to legislate on abortion.

Homicide is a leading killer of pregnant women, and it is well known that violence against women increases during pregnancy. But this law does not protect pregnant women from violence. As the NDP critic for women, Irene Mathyssen, points out, what the government needs to address is better measures to protect women in general and pregnant women in particular, from domestic violence. A “fetal homicide” law would completely sidestep the issue of domestic abuse and do nothing to protect pregnant women from violence before it happens. It would also do nothing to protect women who are abused shortly after giving birth. Before we start talking about laws to protect fetuses, the government has an obligation to make sure that women’s rights are protected first, by addressing the systemic problem of domestic violence. (Follow responses to this bill on babble, here.)

And finally they tried to play us for fools

It is bad enough that the Liberals didn’t deem this budget as worth of an election, and then let Bill C-484 pass, but then as if to play us for fools the womenâe(TM)s caucus of the Liberal Party held a press conference at the end of the week denouncing the budget’s exclusion of women’s issues that could not be supported by the NDP or the Bloc. Yuck. (Though the NDP proposed an amendment to the proposal that of course was rejected. Again, for more discussion of all this, visit babble.)

IWD: a great day for fighting back

Unfortunately, we have only summarized the latest round of a sustained attack by the feds on the gains made by equality-seeking women’s groups in Canada. We didn’t even get into the scrapping of the Court Challenges Program, the de-funding (and the removal of the word equality from the mandate!) of Status of Women, which has led to the closure of women’s advocacy and research groups such as Women in the Law.

All of this and more is what makes today’s IWD as important as ever. So, wherever you are in Canada, we hope you enjoy the day and use it to plan and organize the much-needed fight back for women’s rights.