Reap What You SOW

Women across the country today will be wandering around aimlessly like lost children unable to fend for themselves, unable to balance their chequebooks to pay for their childrens' daycare with their 71 cents on the male dollar, because their local Status of Women office will no longer be there to help them:

Heritage Minister Bev Oda revealed Wednesday that 12 of the federal agency's 16 regional offices will be shut down by April 1.

The blow is part of a cost-cutting program announced in September that will see the agency lose $5-million from it's $23-million annual budget over two years.

Status of Women Canada works to advance women's economic equality and human rights and eliminate violence against women.

Ms. Oda said the regional offices do little to serve women directly and money can be better spent by streamlining services.

But Liberal MP Maria Minna called the move “reprehensible.”

“Canadian women are still only earning 71 cents to every dollar earned by their male counterparts, more and more women are living in poverty, and we are still waiting for the government to create child-care spaces,” she said.

“With the closure of these regional offices, the government is taking away one of the very few remaining resources for women.”

Which is laughably false. Unless, of course, women who need help are incapable of picking up the Yellow Pages. Or going to city hall. Or calling the local church outreach program. Or the university campus wimmin's centre.

Quick question for the distaff side of the audience: how many of you have ever called the local SOW office for anything?

Source: Globe and Mail (with plenty of unintentionally hilarious reader comments)