We've lost dozens and dozens of advocacy organizations. Really, the changes that have come about in Canadian society and in the provinces have been the result of advocacy by women's groups. It is feminist advocacy that brought forward the need for maternity benefits and explained the existence of sexual harassment and the problems around violence against women and so on.
By losing this feminist advocacy, we're losing the voice of women and the capacity to critically assess the existing policies and to propose relevant law reform initiatives.
This has been recognized by the United Nations. In the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, for example, we recognized the need of the states to work with and to support independent women-based research and advocacy.
So we're losing a voice, we're losing a capacity to address and identify the remedies, and really we're weakening the Canadian democracy, because we're losing a big part of our picture here.