Mr. Speaker, the government balanced the budget yesterday at the expense of Canadian women. The Conservatives' tax policy is a total failure for gender equality.
Budget day also happened to be Equal Pay Day. Yes, it was also a day to remind everyone that a woman must work until April of the next year to earn the same amount made by a man the previous year. That is a 30% gap. Yesterday's Conservative budget provides nothing to reduce the gender gap. In fact, it is more like the same old same old, creating even more obstacles for women, with measures that are good for only a small group of Canadians.
Instead of providing affordable and accessible child care for all families, the Conservatives chose to spend billons of dollars on income splitting for the wealthy, a measure that will decrease women's participation in the workforce.
Canadians deserve better. We deserve a budget that takes into account the burden of unpaid work, the wage gap and the high rates of violence against women. We deserve an NDP government.