Stephen Harper has said he wouldn’t make his daughter wear a niqab just because she’s a woman. I’m pretty sure that no one was worried he was about to do that, but thanks for taking one thing off the Fear List, Mr Harper.
Choosing to wear a niqab is a woman’s right in this country, not her obligation. That is all. However, Mr Harper is happy to amp up the rhetoric because it distracts from his real record on women’s issues. Wage inequality is a real issue for millions of women in this country. The wage gap between men and women has risen under Harper’s watch and is now twice the global average. Poverty rates in Canada (and particularly in this riding) are also on the rise for elderly women, single women, and single-parent families headed by women. We still lack a national strategy to end violence against women, and the Status of Women Canada department has suffered funding cuts so deep under Harper that you have probably forgotten it exists at all. Judging by the turnover and makeup of his high-ranking staff, as well as his unprecedented questioning of the authority of the female Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Stephen Harper doesn’t listen to anyone, least of all women.
Justin Trudeau has committed to an inquiry into the shocking number of missing and murdered Aboriginal women in this country, an issue not very high on the radar. Of Mr Harper. Mr Trudeau has a plan to take action against poverty, and has made history by committing to a cabinet comprising equal numbers of women and men. Ladies and gentlemen, THAT is the difference between true leadership and thinly veiled misogyny.
