Silence Speaks Volumes: NDP, Green Party, & Conservatives provide no response to women's rights survey
The lack of response to WDI's survey concerning women's rights by BC's main political parties was predictable and frustrating.
In early October, a survey on women’s rights was sent to all political candidates ahead of BC’s election on the 19th by Women’s Declaration International (BC/Yukon). While numerous responses were received from fringe parties and independent candidates, neither the Conservative Party of BC, BC New Democratic Party (NDP), nor the BC Green Party responded meaningfully to the survey.
While recognition of receipt was provided by the Conservatives, absolutely no response was provided by the NDP or Green Party. The silence of these two parties really does speak volumes. We shouldn’t be surprised. The NDP has been consistently calling any concern about gender identity an expression of hate against the “2SLGBTQIA+” community. For example, parents in the 1MillionMarch4Kids are referred to as hateful and anti-trans, or anti-LGBTQ by Premier David Eby, unions, and the BC Human Rights Commissioner.
Women’s rights groups such as WDI furthermore are generally treated as hate groups by organizations such as the Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN) which has received government funding to attack legitimate civil society groups such as Canadian Women’s Sex-Based Rights (caWsbar). CAHN is sought out for media interviews which feeds the public’s negative perception of women’s rights groups. Groups which are truly fighting for only women’s rights, as opposed to groups such as the Canadian Women’s Federation which has opened its mandate to “gender-diverse persons”, are treated with anathema by political parties such as the NDP.
The Green Party, which, while a small party in terms of elected representatives, had considerable influence during the NDP’s minority government from 2017 to 2021. The Green Party tends to hold the same attitudes towards women’s rights as the NDP. In advance of the 1MillionMarch4Kids protests in 2023, they released a statement denouncing the demonstrations. It would seem that, because women’s rights campaigners’ call out the inherent conflict between “rights” set out for trans individuals, such as allowing them to access sex-segregated spaces of all kinds such as changerooms and prisons based on gender identity, the NDP and Green Party view any challenge to the newly established norm as hateful.
I would argue that the lack of response by the NDP and Green Party is a response in itself: they do not believe in the legitimacy of a group which aims to have women’s rights recognized. They do not believe that women are a distinct group which does not include trans-identified men, and who may have concerns and needs which are based on biology. Before moving onto the response from the Conservative Party of BC, I will provide a brief review of platform items which indicate the NDP and Green Party positions on women’s rights.
The NDP do have a section on women’s health in their platform, which appears to only refer to biological women in most instances, suggesting that they do recognize the biological difference between women and trans-identified men, at least in the realm of health. I’m not sure how deep that recognition goes however, given that on International Women’s Day in 2023, David Eby tweeted:
Followed by a twitterstorm, he then tweeted:
What a way to recognize and value actual women. Anyway, the NDP platform also includes a concerning point around strengthening hate speech legislation, which has been used to force the use of wrong-sex pronouns and suppress statements critical of gender ideology. The BC Office of the Human Rights Commissioner (BC OHRC), earnestly promotes the rights of the “LGBTQ2SAI+”, potentially over the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as noted in an email from the office. Also noted in the email, “On September 19th 2023, Commissioner Govender released a statement clearly articulating that the human rights of trans and LGBTQ2SAI+ people are not up for debate.”
Since so-called “misgendering” is already considered discrimination which risks huge fines, and that the definition of hate speech seems to encompass any perceived negative speech against a person or group with a protected characteristic (e.g., gender identity, sexual orientation) one wonders how much stronger hate speech legislation could get provincially. Hopefully the NDP is not aiming to somehow emulate at a provincial level some aspects of the Online Harms Act (Bill C-63) presented by the federal Liberal Party in February of this year. This bill proposes to increase criminal penalties for “hate speech” offenses and even submit individuals to preemptive violations of their liberty if a complainant fears that they will engage in hate speech in the future. When women’s rights groups are being labeled as “hate groups” by organizations such as CAHN, this desire to broaden and increase penalties for hate speech is concerning.
Apart from including a focus on women’s health in the NDP platform, there is little else which supports women as a distinct, biologically-based group. They do however have a website called “Proud All Year: Eight ways we're fighting for BC's 2SLGBTQ+ community” dated to 2022. Items included on this page include providing access to sex reassignment bottom surgeries in Vancouver, ensuring breast removal (top) surgeries are available in all health authorities in BC, and allowing an X to be used instead of a gender marker on official identification.
In regards to the BC Green Party platform, one of only two mentions of women pointedly states: “trans women are women, and trans men are men”. The only other mention of women at all is in regards to supporting the cause of missing and murdered Indigenous women. While this is a worthy cause, there are no policies which explicitly refer to support for all women in terms of health, safety, education, or otherwise.
Coming to the Conservative Party of BC, three candidates similar responses to the first survey email. One stated:
At this time, our party leader is in the process of rolling out policies, and your questions have been forwarded to our team for consideration as part of this ongoing process. We take feedback from organizations like yours seriously and value your input in shaping our policy positions.
While WDI requested that any updated policy from the Conservatives be forwarded to them, that did not occur. The Conservative platform does not specifically have anything related to women. A recent press release however does state that SOGI123 would be eliminated. Although this is not directly related to women’s rights, the gender identity concepts included within these resources and lessons undermine women as a distinct biological sex, instead teaching that gender (which children would understand as sex) depends solely on how one feels. However, in April of this year, Rustad, the Conservative leader, introduced a bill in the Provincial Legislature proposing that all sports should be segregated by sex, not gender.
One last email from WDI was sent to party offices on October 15th, again requesting a response to the survey as well as an answer to whether the “political party has a policy defining sex” and if the “party’s members understand that sex is a recognized category in both the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the BC Human Rights Code.”
WDI further states in the email:
Women are watching and waiting for answers from the future leaders of BC and silence is an answer which shows disregard. Women should not be told to understand themselves by a man's self-image owing to gender ideology/queer theory this century, any more than having been property last century owing to heterosexual male ideology.
No responses to this last email were received.
Although predictable, it is disappointing for the NDP and Green Party that their silence points to a perceived alignment of women’s rights organizations with “hate”. How much has society changed that the rights of half the population are being demoted to below men pretending to be or believing themselves to be women.
In regards to the Conservatives, although it seems that women’s rights are on their radar, it is also disappointing that they would not respond in any substantial way to the survey.
Based on the responses received by fringe parties, independent candidates, and our understanding of the platforms and beliefs of the NDP, Green Party, and Conservatives, we hope that this helps BC readers to make a decision which supports women for the election this Saturday.
Excellent work. It's the silence on this that informs me every time. And when I do find a person in-person who is required to listen, the response is diplomatic mirroring of my FEELINGS and not addressing or commenting on the FACTS I express.
This is very discouraging ! I had a lot of trouble even finding emails to forward survey.
I am so angry with my alternatives and exhausted by the thought this fight is still so hidden .