When is advocacy funding gender discriminatory?

While I am a proponent of advocacy funding (unlike the slash and burn cuts by this CPC government), poor administration has led to many programs becoming gender discriminatory according to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Where does the accountability lie in fixing social problems that have been created by the misuse of advocacy funds? Should the Auditor General be looking at this much like they did to discover the misuse of funds at Children's Aid in Ontario this week?

To clarify, I am only a proponent of advocacy funding if it does not put the rights of one gender behind those of the other. Yes we need to fund shelters and rape centres and educational programs. We need advocacy funding. But where it has failed is where patriarchal principles are insitutionalised because funding is made available to (1) make gender the determining factor in who gets custody of children in cases of divorce; (2) to make child support (which is 90% paid by men to women because of how custody is determined) a priority over access (which affects mostly men and has been in limbo since the 1990s). There is a definate gender hierachy and advocacy funding has been misused to create these dynamics and to preserve the status quo. In the meantime, men, children and women from second families have become second tier citizens to first families, and children suffer.

Unfortunately, the present system is way out of balance. It takes tragedies to elicit change. When one considers this tragedy and this other tragedy, people lament in retrospect "how could this happen. While when one considers this, people tend to think that is what men tend to do rather than this is what "disturbed people" do. Statistics show that breaking down psychotic behaviour on gender lines is pure propaganda and without merit. Meanwhile, public policy is developed unfortunately in accordance with these myths, in part due to advocacy funding.

As citizens, we need to look at what impact the misuse of advocacy funds have created and maintained in promoting these myths and gender based power dynamics.

I urge my fellow Liberals to bring back advocacy funds with appropriate measures to ensure they cannot and will not be used to further the agenda of one gender over another.