QUEBEC CITY - The Quebec Federation of Women apologized Friday for an online anti-war campaign that angered mothers of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan and the federation altered the advertisement to remove a particularly objectionable line.
The federation came under fire Thursday from some mothers of the military after it produced an online video calling for the return of Canada's troops and an end to the war where a woman talks of her son being killed in Afghanistan.
The woman, an actress, said that if she'd known she was giving birth to "cannon fodder," she might not have had children at all, upsetting some military families.
The women's federation demonstrated outside the National Assembly in Quebec City on Thursday, calling politicians' attention to feminist issues, and sought to explain the video.
"Their children are not cannon fodder. There are no children that are cannon fodder. What we mean is to question the Canadian government, the army, who uses our children as cannon fodder. So their children, of course, they're children. They are men and women who have given their lives, and are continuing to give their lives, on what they feel is probably a just and a right mission," said Alexa Conradi, president of the Quebec Federation of Women.
The group also raised the issue of Afghanistan at the demonstration meant to promote next week's World March of Women, calling for an end to military recruiters going to Canadian schools.
The federation issued a public apology Friday and announced the line had been removed from the video.
"The goal of producing the capsule was to question the political orientations of the government's defence policies," the federation said in a statement. "We have portrayed the great sadness and anger of a mother following the death of one of her children in Afghanistan, a war she doesn't support. She also regrets the army has just recruited her youngest daughter at school.
"However, representatives of the World March of Women understand that the mother's phrase where she regrets having given birth to her children in order to wage war was hurtful and does not reflect the sentiments of the mothers of all soldiers. Therefore, this phrase was removed from the capsule today."
While there is no mention of "canon fodder" in the newly edited video, the mother still says the following:
"People say, make love not war. Well, what they should really be saying is make love for war, because it takes a lot of children to supply an army."
