Actually the defenders and protectors of women's rights are Conservatives as Barbara Kay so aptly points out in her column. Our Conservative government has come out to fund an initiative geared towards preventing honor type violence against girls and women.
Fortunately, strategies to diminish honour-motivated violence against girls and women in Canada are being mobilized by the federal government.One such initiative was launched last week by Minister for the Status of Women Rona Ambrose. The Edmonton Indo-Canadian Women’s Association has received $241,000 for a 24-month project designed to empower immigrant girls and women, “Elimination of Harmful Cultural Practices: A Community-Centred Approach for Education and Action.” The project is a tangible outcome of meetings and conferences sparked by a July, 2010 Frontier Centre report on the troubling persistence of honour-motivated abuse into the second and third generation of South Asian communities.She then sums up her column by saying that a Liberal government probably would not be intiating such a program. I agree.
Part of the money will fund a shelter, WIN House, reserved for refugee and immigrant women fleeing abuse, within which the program, “Changing Together,” will operate. A priority is information outreach — to inform immigrant women before they come to Canada, on their arrival, at settlement offices, banks, doctors’ offices and other frequent points of contact (including Facebook and Twitter) — about women’s rights here, reassuring immigrants that such practices as forced marriages and dowry fraud are not tolerated in Canada.
Not to be (very) partisan, but I doubt that a Liberal government would have found the will to apply such “active, muscular liberalism” to the problem before a European-style crisis forced its hand.Clearly something has to be done to stop this kind of violence against innocent women and girls and I'm glad our Conservative government is on the ball on that front. Liberals seem to be more for advocacy when it comes to womens issues. Conservatives are more for helping women directly. Case in point, they are defending womens rights not only in Canada but also in Afghanistan by help women and girls to go to school to work etc.
Liberals just talk, Conservatives do!