nasheen

I am not a writer but I have spent the last few hours trying to craft my first blog post out of sheer, panicky fear, because what I am is a scared Canadian feminist who knows that Feministing has many Canadian readers that need to be reached with this story.

Marci McDonald wrote an excellent piece in this Saturday’s Toronto Star titled ‘ How Canada’s Christian right was built’ that definitely needs to be read. Prompted by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s announcement that abortion funding will not be part of Canada’s G8 plan for developing countries, and Senator Nancy Ruth’s advice to activists to “shut the fuck up” about it, McDonald takes an in depth look at just how successful Harper has been in shifting the political center of gravity in Canada to the right. The social conservatives of Canada first organized when Jean Chretien proposed the legalization of same-sex marriage. Their defeat on the issue lead them to organize and mobilize, and today this group is threatening to shake Canada’s long-held liberal and open-minded political spirit to its core.

As McDonald put it:

[They] have built sophisticated databases and online networks capable of mobilizing their forces behind specific legislation with instant e-mail alerts and updates. Setting up an array of internship programs, they are also training a new generation of activists to be savvier than their secular peers in navigating the corridors of power. Already, their alumni ...