After three decades of (admittedly uneven) progress towards full human rights, women now must contend with the agenda of Stephen Harper. The Prime Minister’s disdain for women’s equality is one of the most dramatic examples of his wider assault on democracy.

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In the very first year that Stephen Harper was prime minister he moved in many ways to halt the course of progress for women. His government summarily cancelled the multi-billion dollar national child care program that the previous Liberal government had spent years negotiating with the provinces (and women’s groups had fought for, for decades). It also had the support of the vast majority of Canadians.

This program was hardly a radical proposal. Canada is one of the most backward countries among Western developed nations regarding early childhood education. This program would simply have begun to close the gap.

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Other cuts were part of a one billion dollar assault on things that the Harper government didn’t like, and were implemented in spite of the fact that his government had inherited a $13 billion surplus. Amongst the programs eliminated was the Court Challenges Program (CCP), one of the most effective and innovative programs in the world promoting and facilitating human rights. The CCP had, since 1978, provided funding for individuals challenging government legislation that was discriminatory. In short, it made constitutional rights, and rights under the Charter, accessible to ordinary people. Amongst its major beneficiaries were women. To ensure that it would not have to accept any outside, citizens-based advice on changing the law, Harper also eliminated the $4 million in funding for the Law Commission of Canada, formerly the Law Reform Commission.

The government also closed 12 out of 16 regional offices of Status of Women Canada across the country as well as eliminating the $1 million Status of Women Independent Research Fund. Changes were imposed to the criteria for funding for the Status of Women Canada’s Women’s Program which precluded support for advocacy or lobbying for law reform. That meant that dozens of women-run NGOs would no longer receive funding because virtually all of them combined advocacy with the provision of services — such as women’s shelters advocating for an end to violence against women.

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In 2009 the Harper government took pay equity backwards when it introduced the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act. According to human rights advocates the bill emptied “the right to pay equity of its meaning. The new legislated criteria for evaluating ‘equitable compensation’ will reintroduce sex discrimination into pay practices, rather than eliminate it.” The law (passed by stealth by placing it in the 2009 budget where it could not be voted down) introduced additional criteria that would allow public sector employers to consider “market demand” in determining compensation — in effect ensuring higher pay for men even if the work was of equal value.

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If there was any doubt that it was Stephen Harper’s personal determination to set back women’s equality, Garth Turner, a Conservative MP who eventually left the caucus, left none. He told the Georgia Straight: “[Harper]said, ‘We have determined a series of cuts, … which will be announced…. They are our position. And…anyone [who] has got any problem with that — who says anything about it — is going to have a short political career.’ He said that in caucus.”

Remember.