SASKATOON – While government funding cuts to their organizations worry rural women, they are also concerned issues are being shunted aside as relevant only to their gender.
Child care is an agricultural health and safety issue, says Shannon Storey, of the National Farmers Union women’s program. Too many children die or are injured because their parents are doing farm chores and must either leave them alone or take them into potentially dangerous situations.
About 15 prairie children died in farm accidents last year and dozens more were injured.
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“Child care is my husband’s concern, as well as mine and my child’s.”
However, Storey said it is being threatened as governments suggest funding for rural child care come from women’s programs rather than the general agriculture budget. That’s a step away from the goal of integrating women and their issues into the whole of the agriculture industry, she said.
Groups being eliminated
Storey is not alone in her concerns. The former Saskatchewan representative to the National Action Committee for the Status of Women, Nayyar Javed, said she has noticed a disturbing trend by governments to discount women’s groups. And Janet Walter, of the Alberta Farm Women’s Network, has seen the same thing as her provincial government plans to eliminate its women’s advisory council next month.
Javed said she’s concerned about the consistent cuts to women’s groups in the past few years because “the best investment in human beings is to empower women.” Loss of grants is causing women’s groups to reduce activities or to fold.
Dying a slow death
“Alberta is murdering it and here and in the rest of the country it’s dying through cancer,” she said.
While Walter is not as upset about the loss of a provincial women’s council that was not really autonomous, she is adamant the “women’s view has to be heard and isn’t always heard.” She suggests the Alberta Action Committee on the Status of Women could become a forum for all women, even those who consider themselves on the opposite end of the philosophical spectrum from feminists.
Funding cuts and shifting priorities have also been noticed by the Federated Women’s Institutes of Canada. President Charlotte Johnson said institutes used to get federal grants to pay for administration. Now, the total has shrunk to where there are no guarantees about next year. Funding pays only for specific projects, not for infrastructure.
“We’re going to have to spell out exactly how the money is spent,” said Johnson. While that’s not a bad thing, she said, it takes more effort from the limited staff resources simply to justify activities. And in an era of falling memberships, fees must be raised on the surviving members to carry the load.
