Day one in the House: Advocacy funding a possible timebomb for Dion opposition

The brand new Stephane Dion led Liberal opposition took on a seemingly harmless and sensible grievance as its inaugural issue. Stephane Dion led the charge by asking about the absence of advocacy funding and the closing of Status of Women's offices across the country.

Not all Liberals agree this is the best starting point. Advocacy funding is important as a means of assisting grassroots movements in creating fair change. If it were to end there, this would be a non-issue.

Where this is dangerous politically is when advocacy funding crosses the line to favours one gender at the expense of another. This variation can be seen as a possible violation under the charter. Stated simply, when funding to advocacy groups becomes "blind advocacy" in support of one group over another, the Liberal value - to be able to challenge the establishment in an organised way via funding - becomes problematic and something the Conservatives could use to divide Liberals if Mr. Dion does not clarify his position.

If Stepahne Dion wants to protect against a possible backfire on this issue, he should clarify that Status of Women funding should not be used to maintain the status quo in federal family policy any longer unless an equitable amount of funding is provided to organisations who advocate on behalf of non-residential parents and second families.

Second families are typically concerned with "access" issues, while parents with whom children of divorce live are mostly concerned with child support, for obvious reasons. Status of Women has funded groups who have advocated the prioritisation of child support issues and delays in perpetuity to changes to the Divorce Act to scrap divisive terminology and gender hierarchies in the awarding of custody and access. This is in spite of recommendations by federally commissioned reports in 1998 and 2002.

Arguably, advocacy funding is also where the myth of the "dead beat dad" was spun up. After all:

· 90.2% of fathers with joint custody pay the support due.
· 79.1% of fathers with visitation privileges pay the support due.
· 44.5% of fathers with no visitation pay the support due.
· 37.9% of fathers are denied any visitation.
· 66% of all support not paid by non-custodial fathers is due to the inability to pay.

With respect to the Charter question, in 1998 a Canadian, Pat Ellis, argued that sex-specific funding by any level of government is prohibited by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Below is an excerpt from a legal opinion from a prominent Toronto legal firm regarding his action.

"Mr. Ellis had discovered an anomaly in the law under the equality rights provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ("Charter") More specifically, he has found that subsection 15(2) of the charter with respect to the prohibited ground of 'sex" conflicts with subsection 28 of the Charter. It does not appear as though the issue of the conflict between the two provisions of the Charter has been litigated.
In that respect, this would be a test case. What might be required is an authorization to do a Constitutional Reference on this point to the Supreme Court of Canada."

"Section 28 of the Charter, provides that, "Notwithstanding anything in his charter, the rights and freedoms referred to in it are guaranteed equally to male and female persons." Whether this provision supersedes subs.15(2) of the charter is an issue. The override clause of the Charter, section 33, does not apply to section 28 but does apply to section 15. This is further evidence of the anomaly."

"It appears to us that the gender bias argument of Mr. Ellis has merit, and is of considerable importance to about half the population of this country, who happen to be male, and have been or are likely to be subjected to the gender bias in the various laws of Canada, which may conflict with the supreme law of the land."

As a Liberal who cares about the future of the party, gender neutrality and fairness, it is important that Mr. Dion clarify that such advocacy funding not be meant for blind advocacy at the expense of others. Otherwise the "dream team" will be vulnerable to counter-critisism.