Liberals update ‘Pink Book’ on women’s issues
October 22nd, 2009
Canwest News Service/Kelowna.com

OTTAWA – Opposition leader Michael Ignatieff promised Wednesday to put equality for women at the centre of his party’s policy platform in the next general election, calling a set of policy proposals to improve the lives of Canadian women “the conscience of the Liberal party.”…

The Liberal women’s caucus – the 39 female Liberal MPs and senators – released the third edition Wednesday of their Pink Book, a volume of about 40 pages which, as it did in the Pink Books of 2006 and 2007, contains a series of Liberal policy positions to improve the lives of Canadian women….

As it has been since the first Pink Book was published in 2006, the top priority for the women’s caucus is the establishment of a national daycare strategy with particular emphasis on increasing daycare spaces for rural families.

“It’s not the job of the Liberal party to tell Canadian families how to raise their children but to give them choices so they don’t feel the challenge of care weighing down on them,” Ignatieff said.

Winnipeg MP Anita Neville, who is also her party’s critic on women’s issues, said policy proposals put forward by her group have been developed with an eye toward the changing role of women in society, that a record number of women are in the workforce, for example, yet are still the chief caregivers in their household.

“Government policies and laws continue to rely on an outdated view of what the Canadian family looks like,” Neville said. “Since the Harper government came to power, Canadian women have suffered.”….

Ignatieff declined to put a price tag on all these initiatives, saying only that his party would present a complete costing of its platform at election time.