First they came for KAIROS ...

Gerald Caplan, G&M:

The Harper government, women’s rights and the cost of speaking out

The Tories are playing punishment politics with Canada’s progressive NGOs – and eroding civil society in the process

"Despite the chill on speaking out, this week the Canadian Council for International Co-operation announced its fear that its funding is likely to be cut. CCIC is Canada's preeminent coalition to end global poverty. Some 90 Canadian non-profit organizations, including most of the well-known ones, come together under the CCIC umbrella to monitor federal policies on foreign affairs, aid, trade and peace-building."

"Monitor federal policies on foreign affairs, aid, trade, and peace-building"?

Well there's your problem right there.

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Betty Plewes, the former CEO of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation, was not afraid of speaking out in Embassy Mag in May :

"At Foreign Affairs, the past year has seen the entire division focused on women's rights and gender equality eliminated.

In Pakistan and Kenya, two countries where women's rights violations and violence against women are profound and systemic, CIDA has cut funds that were explicitly dedicated to gender equality. In Canada, Match International, the only international development organization devoted specifically to women's equality, has lost its funding.

Within CIDA, there is a noticeable retreat from gender equality work. Staff have recommended to NGOs that they remove the words "gender equality" from their proposal if they want a chance at funding."

This is what Senator Nancy Ruth was warning about when she recently advised NGO's to "Shut the fuck up" about abortion funding overseas. "If you push it, there will be more backlash," said Nancy Ruth.
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Antonia Zerbisias covered much of this ground recently in Is Ottawa leaving women behind?, with a great quote that "the women's movement is the canary in the coal mine" :

"Canadians are snoozing while they are losing their country,” says [Liberal SWC critic Anita] Neville.“I don’t think people know or understand what’s going on.
I don’t think they will realize it until it hits them personally."

Yeah, that's how it usually is - women and children always go first.

A wise old senator....

Brings the focus not on herself but on her words.

“We’ve got five weeks or whatever left until G-8 starts. Shut the f--- up on this issue,”

Coming from a Harper sycophant this would be typical conservative authoritarianism.

But Senator Nancy Ruth isn't really a Harper sycophant. In fact, she may be telling everyone that the Harper agenda includes that hidden one the conservative flapping lips keep telling us does not exist. Nancy Ruth is sending a message and it sounds like a warning we might have heard out of Kurt Konrad or Jan Slavik in 1938.

“If you push it, there will be more backlash,” said Ruth, who fears that outrage will push her boss, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to take further measures against abortion and family planning – abroad, or maybe even in Canada. “This is now a political football. This is not about women’s health in this country.”

Really, Nancy? Tell us more. Do a Ludendorff and give us what you know.

I'm with JJ. Nancy knows where Harper plans to go and it ain't pretty.

So, Nancy, feed the dragon. It's vituperate enough to take it any way you want to spell it out.