Mr. Speaker, one thing that makes me most proud about being a parliamentarian is the opportunity to be a part of the passage of legislation like Bill C-64.
When each one of us makes the decision to run for public office it is because we have certain agendas, certain policies we want to put forward. Seven years ago next week, when I was first nominated to run for public office, I had an agenda and I still do. That agenda has a great deal to do with human rights. It has a great deal to do with regional disparity. It has a great deal to do with feminism and it has a great deal to do with fairness. Bill C-64 is a piece of legislation that certainly fits into my agenda. It fits into one of the reasons that although I was born into the great Liberal Party I chose it again as a student in university and later when I decided to run.
There are frequently misunderstandings about the expression employment equity. For example, there are people who confuse employment equity and affirmative action. Employment equity and affirmative action, while complementary, are not the same.
I used an analogy when I spoke at report stage and I will do it again because it bears repeating. At report stage I talked about the fact that we could use a medical metaphor. Employment equity is preventive. It is a preventive measure. It ensures that we do the right thing from the beginning. Affirmative action is curative. I might add, for those people who through misunderstanding find affirmative action repugnant, that affirmative action is enshrined in the charter of rights and freedoms and as such is something Canadians have taken to most strongly, not just Canadians of this political stripe but the majority of Canadians.
Affirmative action would not be necessary if employment equity were the rule rather than the exception.
A couple of phrases and a couple of taglines have arisen throughout the debate that need to be dealt with. The one I have to talk about is the usage of two words together in the English language whenever we talk about employment equity. Those two words are competent and woman. When I hear my colleagues say a competent woman should be allowed, another word I truly love, to advance as far as anyone else, I sit here in vacant and in pensive mood and wonder why we never use those words together about competent men.
Why are we always so afraid that some woman might slip through and might not be competent? With the greatest of respect-and I have already said on several occasions in this debate how fond of men I am in general-there are some incompetent men. We have seen them and they have not suffered in the employment equity wars as have perhaps legions of competent women.
The hissy fit I just had was a little patronizing. I did it deliberately. We can argue the merits of employment equity. Certainly these expressions irritate a number of women on this side of the House-and I look at my colleagues from Oakville-Milton, Windsor-St. Clair and Etobicoke-Lakeshore-as much as they irritate me. Perhaps it is not as much as they irritate me but they certainly are irritating. Perhaps I have become more irritable in these discussions. It may be because I have been having these discussions in the Chamber longer than my three aforementioned colleagues.
Whether we are patronizing, whether women or men are competent or incompetent, whether there is a feminist agenda, whether there is a Liberal agenda-and of course there is a Liberal agenda called the red book-it is important that the bill continues the legacy of fairness. It must continue the legacy of sound social policies which have made this country the envy of the world, which have made this country the country rated number one in the United Nations survey. Everybody here knows that in their hearts, in their minds and in all their lives. It has been a great blessing for all of us either to choose to come here or to have been born here.
We enjoy longer life expectancy, higher educational levels and a greater real income than anyone else in the world. This is an outstanding record of which anyone in Canada can and should be proud. However, it is based on a history of fair legislation, human rights legislation and employment equity legislation.
It began back in the days of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. It followed through with Mackenzie King, to Louis St. Laurent, to Lester Pearson, to Pierre Trudeau and now to the current Prime Minister. It is a legacy we in the Liberal Party are justly proud of and it is one that we will continue to further.
It would be dangerous, however, to sit back, to rest on our laurels and say that because of this history Canada is somehow a perfect place. It is not a perfect place. It is not a perfect place if one belongs to a visible minority. It is not a perfect place if one is a woman. It is not a perfect place if one has a disability. It is not a perfect place if one falls under any of the prohibited heads in the charter of rights and freedoms. We know that discrimination is still a fact of life; every one of us knows it. The whole reason for discrimination is fear of the unknown, fear of people unlike us, fear that somehow people who are unlike us will take something away from us or away from our children. However there is a Canadian tradition that rises above fear.
We are only now emerging from one of the worst recessionary periods in our history. Most of us in the House of Commons belong to that amorphous mass known as the post-war baby boom. This recession was the first real attack on our very privileged lives. Many of us were lucky enough to weather it without huge injury but many of us were not.
I stood in the House on many occasions in opposition and talked about the cost in human terms of the recession. I talked about the rate of bankruptcies, the small business losses. I talked about the number of young people, both men and women, who were not getting jobs and did not have any hope.
We are recovering. We know it and we see it. It is not coming perhaps as fast as we would like but it is coming. Consequently, because Canada is coming back to its accustomed prosperity, the time has come for legislation like Bill C-64 to shore up our employment equity promises and to ensure that all Canadians have fair opportunity.
There are times when it is important to deal with questions of gender equality with a relatively light touch. Members of the female gender remind male colleagues that life is better from womb to tomb for the Lords of creation.
I said in the House the other day that in spite of the fears of some of our colleagues in opposition, white males get 50 per cent of federal government jobs. They get 60 per cent of the jobs nationally in both the private and public sector combined. Even more overwhelming, white males get 90 per cent of the promotions. With figures like that I believe it would be safe to say, and I do not think anyone would argue with me, probably the white male is not exactly an endangered species in the economic climate.
