Strange bedfellows are promoting a tax policy that’s already drained the federal coffers of $700 million and potentially rewards “traditional” families over dual-incomers.

On the one extreme, you’ve got the conservative, Christian-funded Institute for Marriage and the Family Canada (IMFC), with a front woman who comes across as a Canadian version of Sarah Palin. On the other, you’ve got the Green Party of Canada, with a front woman who comes across as a toned-down, white, female version of Barack Obama.

Both think Canada should adopt “tax splitting”. The Conservatives, who offered tax-splitting to seniors in 2006, are promising, if reelected, to offer it to families caring for disabled relatives.

Here’s how it works: a family with two parents adds up their incomes and divides by two to plant them in a median tax category more favourable to the higher earner. If one person is earning $100,000 a year and the other is earning $15,000, they’d both be in a tax bracket of $57,500-earners-and thus save a pile in taxes. Some formulas allow single parents to benefit too.

Elisabeth Gugl, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Victoria, told the Straight that tax-splitting discourages women from working.

“Typically, it’s the woman who makes the decision to withdraw from the labour force,” she said in an interview from her Victoria home, where she is on maternity leave. “Individual taxation encourages the labour participation of both people in the household and makes it less lucrative to put all their time into work, as that will put them in higher and higher tax brackets.”

Tax-splitting wouldn’t stand out as much as a slam against women if there weren’t so many other classically feminist issues missing from this election. No party is offering a specific amount of money that would come close to a national, affordable, and accessible child-care system for 0- to 12-year-olds, as envisioned by the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of B.C.

Canada’s 20-year-old abortion laws nearly faced a constitutional challenge after the Conservatives introduced Bill C-484 this spring. So far, no party has substantially sounded off on this. In 2006, Harper gutted the Status of Women Canada, and relaunching it isn’t exactly a platform headliner.

At the same time, Canada has never seen so many women running for major parties.

In other words, are we witnessing the Palinization of Canadian politics? Sure, they’re women––but ultimately, does it matter?

Canada’s feminist doyenne, Judy Rebick, told the Straight that even after 30 years of advocating for women’s rights, she’s not surprised that feminist policy isn’t headlining the campaigns.

“The political system was created for men, by men,” Rebick said. “So women have to act like a Hillary Clinton or a Sarah Palin and become a pit bull. And most women don’t want to do that.” In Harper’s government, she said, it’s not that women are silenced; no one has a voice. “He’s a complete autocrat,” she noted.

Two years ago, Rebick slammed the only woman to lead a federal party in 2008, Elizabeth May, for waffling on abortion. May told a group of nuns that she believed abortions should be legal in Canada, but that “I don’t think a woman has a frivolous right to choose.”

In an open letter on rabble.ca/, Rebick shot back: “Since you have so little respect for me or for the women’s movement which mobilized for so long to win this hard-earned right, I hope you will understand that I ripped up the cheque I had written to the Green Party.”

To Amy Lang, spokesperson for equalvoice.ca/, a nonpartisan lobby group promoting women from all political positions to run for office, the difference of opinion is exactly why Canada needs more women in politics.

“You need a critical mass of about 30 percent of women in the legislature to effect change, before women’s issues start getting on the table,” she told the Straight. “It doesn’t mean that the women all have to agree with each other, just that they work together to get the issue on the table.”

So far, Canada hasn’t elected more than 22 percent women to the House of Commons.

Hey, sweetheart, what’s your score?

> For the 2008 election, the Conservatives nominated 19-percent women, but in just 15 percent of the total in winnable ridings.

> The Liberals nominated 36-percent women, with 28 percent in winnable ridings.

> The NDP nominated 34-percent women, with 39 percent in winnable ridings.

> The Greens nominated 25-percent women (the Greens are not considered to have any winnable ridings).

> In B.C., 34 percent of candidates are women, the highest percentage of any province.

> Across the North, just two women are nominated, representing 16 percent of the candidates.

> In 2006, 20.7 percent of MPs elected were women.

> Since 1993, the percentage of women in the House has hovered between 18 percent and 21.1 percent.

> The greatest number of women in cabinet was under Jean Chrétien, at 16.

> In 2006, Stephen Harper appointed six women to cabinet; in 2007, seven.

Source: www.equalvoice.ca