Yasmin Ratansi

[Canada Elections Act, November 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to respond to the member. This shows the arrogance of the Conservatives. They think they represent the Muslim community. They think they have talked to the Muslim community. They have no clue.

I, as a Muslim woman, take pride in whatever garb I wear. I do not wear the hijab or the niqab. That is not the issue. The issue is that the government has decided to make the veil an issue. It has decided to target a community. It has decided to discriminate against one million Muslims.

The Conservatives should apologize. They should be ashamed of this. There was no issue. Why did they make it an issue? The current law does not require visual identification. There is no photo identification required. People could use a debit card or a bank statement. What sort of nonsense are the Conservatives spouting? It shows they have no idea when they bring in bills. They bring in haphazard legislation and expect people to pass legislation that is so haphazard, so ludicrous and so stupid.

[Canada Elections Act, November 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on this important issue of democratic freedom in our country.

As my esteemed colleague from Don Valley West has said, this is a flawed bill. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the rights of an individual to freely practise his or her religion without interference from the state. Regretfully, the Conservatives are proposing legislation that not only will divide Canadians, but also targets a religious minority for no other reason but to pander to the politics of fear and ignorance.

The Conservatives are showing their disdain for rights and freedoms, and Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act, is a flawed piece of legislation. It represents a knee-jerk reaction that would require Muslim women to unveil their niqab or burka for the purpose of visual identification at the ballot box.

Canadians could be forgiven for thinking veiled Muslim women pose an urgent threat to the integrity of our electoral system, and therefore it appears that the Prime Minister has made it one of his priorities to force voters to show their faces at the polls. But is there any shred of evidence that such a problem existed in the first place? The Conservative government has admitted there was no apparent case of fraud in three federal byelections that were held in September in Quebec when unjustified hysteria over veiled Muslim women first boiled over.

So what is it that the Conservatives are trying to fix? If a problem does not exist, what are they trying to fix? I think what they are trying to fix is that “if you do not look like me or act like me, then you are a problem”. I think that is really unfair to a large population of over a million people who have been law-abiding citizens, who have voted and who have never faced discrimination of the nature that they are seeing at the moment.

The legislation was not crafted in response to any incident involving fraud. Rather, it is irrational and hysterical. If a problem did exist, why did the Prime Minister not include these provisions in the electoral bill that was passed by the House less than six months ago?

The Conservatives have tried to dress up this bill as a means to enhancing public confidence in the democratic process. But it has nothing to do with electoral integrity and everything to do with pandering to the narrow-minded fears about minorities, particularly in Quebec, where this troubling debate over reasonable accommodation is now raging.

What if there is a requirement for visual identification? At the moment visual identification is not required by law in a federal election. In fact, Canadians have the option in this country to vote by postal ballot, where no identification is required, yet the Conservative government firmly believes that veiled Muslim women are a threat. I challenge any member of the House to document one single incident of electoral fraud in Canada that was committed by a veiled Muslim woman.

As Canada's Chief Electoral Officer has pointed out, over 80,000 Canadians voted in the last federal election through the postal system and none of them were required to provide photo identification. Why? Because the law does not require it. These people are snowbirds and other Canadians who are out of the country during a federal election. Should we therefore disenfranchise 80,000 Canadians based on irrational fear?

It may interest members to know that Muslim women currently serving in the Canadian Forces are permitted to wear a hijab on duty. Is the government therefore trying to say to Muslim women that it is okay to serve on the front lines of the Canadian military, but it is not okay for them to wear a veil when they vote?

The Canadian Forces wants to recruit more Muslim women because we desperately need them. We are in Afghanistan, and really, the Conservatives have no idea of what they are doing there. They do not even know what pluralism or diversity means, so what is the message the Conservatives are trying to convey? Is the government trying to uphold the rights of only certain citizens and succumbing to fear and sudden whims that pose no threats? As parliamentarians, we are elected to represent our constituency, and I feel obligated to resist policies that are made on irrational impulses.

We are elected to look at and consider legislation. If it is based on reasoning and rational thought, then we approve it. On this occasion, the bill as it currently reads unfairly targets a religious minority. Also, not only is it contrary to my beliefs, but more important, it is contrary to the law as it currently exists.

I would strongly urge the government to reconsider this legislation and reflect on its responsibility to uphold democratic rights in the country. Considering how flawed the bill is and considering that it is targeting only one community, it is important that it be tightened up, the flaws reviewed and the bill not passed, because it will never pass the charter challenge.

It is another example of the Conservatives' agenda of divisiveness and discrimination against one group. There are glaring inconsistencies and this is shamefully playing cheap politics at the expense of Canadian Muslims. It will not achieve anything. It will not achieve its stated goal of improving visual identification except in wanting one group to lift its veil. Really, it is a veiled attempt at discrimination against one group.

[Canada Elections Act, November 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the response given by the hon. member. He talked about responsibility and wisdom. I saw no wisdom in his response. I found it a veiled attempt at discrimination.

The bottom line is that currently as the law stands there are people who can mail in ballots and who can do special ballots. They do not have to show their faces. There are 80,000 to a million people who vote that way. Where is the wisdom in trying to target one community?

I am very proud of Mr. Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the prime minister who brought in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It protected everyone and did not discriminate because I did not look like them. I would like to see where the wisdom is in the discriminatory practices of this member.

[Sitting Resumed, November 1st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, when the Conservatives cut funding to women's groups, they cut it based on the fact that they were advocating for safety, for aboriginal issues and against violence. Yet they are providing the Conference of Defence Associations, the oldest advocacy group in Canada's defence community, with a $500,000 multi-year grant for safety purposes.

What does the hon. member think when acts of violence really are committed by handguns and guns are a real problem for violence against women?

[Sitting Resumed, November 1st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her passion on this subject. She has been a good member on the Status of Women committee.

I would like to bring to her attention that sometimes rhetoric overshadows fact. The fact is that the Liberal's achievement for women was re-established. The Standing Committee on the Status of Women re-established an expert panel to provide advice on gender based budgeting.

We brought in gender based budgeting. We increased parental benefits, established centres for excellence and we put in money for national crime prevention and family violence. We did a lot of things, including the affordable child care strategy which was done in negotiations with the provinces and territories. We brought in the Kelowna accord to help aboriginals. We put in money for post-secondary education because that was what women told us to do. We put in $1.3 billion for immigrant women, the women who are vulnerable, the women who basically told us what was affecting their economic security.

Why did the NDP join hands with the Conservatives and break all the social programs, which were then gutted by the Conservative government. One billion dollars were taken from literacy and affordable housing. We had affordable housing. We had spaces. The Toronto Star, which is not regarded as a Liberal paper, showed that over 1,000 spaces--

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his passion, but it is really misplaced.

The NDP never has to worry about being government, so it can be as crazy as possible. In 1993 the Liberals inherited a bankrupt country. When a government inherits a bankrupt country, the first thing is to get economic sustainability so people can have jobs. People have to have jobs. If they do not have jobs, they do not know how to pay for things.

In 1993, yes, there was a Liberal red book. Government has to work with the provinces and territories. Once we worked with the provinces and territories for the early learning and child care strategy, why did your leader go and support the new Conservative government--

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to correct the misperception that the Conservatives normally have.

They increased the income tax in budget 2006 from 15% to 15.5%, and that is the biggest problem with the Conservatives. They do not know math. They have been the worst economic managers. They created billions of dollars in debt. They made us a third world country.

If we go from 15.5% to 15%, and come back to the Liberal rate, which was the rate for low income families, the Conservatives have done nothing. In fact, they decreased the personal exemption and they have now increased it back to what the budget was in 2005.

It is critically important to eliminate this shell game because that is what women are watching. They are not stupid. They know exactly what the Conservatives are doing.

In terms of social housing, they eliminated the social housing program. They eliminated funding to any social programs. They cut $1 billion.

I do not know which book the member is reading, but he should really reread the budget and do a comparison on budgets before making statements like that.

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to stand in support of the motion calling upon the government to improve the economic security of women.

This week the Conservatives released a mini-budget in their economic statement that was not only short on substance, but also lacked any mention of women whatsoever.

As chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, the committee spent a great deal of time and effort trying to get the federal government to pay more attention to the economic security of women.

As a matter of fact, the committee published an extensive report that covered detailed studies on the status of vulnerable groups that included rural women, aboriginal women, women with disabilities, senior women and single mothers.

The committee held 18 meetings with departmental officials, individuals, professional organizations, researchers and groups representing the interests of women from across Canada. Regardless of their background or point of view, all the witnesses told the committee that a comprehensive strategy was required to address the economic security of women.

One might ask why we would focus on the economic security of women in Canada. It is simply because that is what equality is all about.

While there have been significant improvements for low income women in Canada in recent years, a witness representing Social Development Canada indicated:

...we still have significant challenges in addressing the gender differences in low income rates, particularly as they affect single senior women, single-parent families headed by women, and women with disabilities.

For example, in 2001, close to two million women or 13% of all women in Canada had a disability.

Furthermore, the likelihood of women having a disability increases with age. Seventy-two percent of the women aged 85 and over had a disability, compared to 50% of women aged 75 to 84, and just 32% of women aged 65 to 74.

In addition, just over 800,000, or close to 7% of women aged 15 and over, had a severe or very severe disability. Furthermore, senior women over the age of 65 are still more likely than men to have low incomes. There are a multitude of reasons for this. Prime among them is the fact that far more women than men are likely to change their work arrangements to care for others. This will naturally have an impact on their present and future economic circumstances.

In Canada, the majority of single parent families are headed by women and, according to Statistics Canada, the poverty rate among single mothers under 65 years of age was a staggering 42.4%. That is nearly half. In addition, the majority of women who find themselves in these circumstances tend to be aboriginal, immigrant and disabled women.

The committee also heard that women are far more likely than men to take time off work to care for children and they are economically vulnerable following unexpected life events, such as the death of a spouse, disability or breakdown of a relationship. The committee heard that it is very difficult for a women who suddenly finds herself as the lone breadwinner to re-enter the job market.

For newcomers to Canada, these difficulties can be bewildering. AWIC Community & Social Services suggested that the inability to function in either official language can represent a major barrier to breaking out of the cycle of poverty.

AWIC suggests that language programs could greatly resolve problems of exploitation, long term dependency on social welfare, lack of participation in the labour market and even social isolation.

The Standing Committee on the Status of Women listened to Canadians but I am afraid the Conservatives have shut their ears.

Women need basic programs such as child care, but one of the first acts of the government was to axe the national child care and early learning strategy after many long years of negotiations with the provinces and territories.

The previous Liberal government made great strides by doubling the length of paid maternity leave from six months to a year under the employment insurance program.

The Liberals also brought in the compassionate care program that allows Canadians the opportunity to take time off from work to care for sick loved ones, something which the committee recommends should be extended further.

Yet, what has been the response of the Conservative government? It brought in $1 billion worth of cuts to social programs at a time when it was hauling in billions in federal surpluses. The government has deceived Canadians by implementing drastic cuts to the Status of Women, closing regional offices, laying off staff, and changing the mandate of that organization so that advocacy is no longer permitted.

To be precise, in September 2006 the Conservatives announced that the budget of the Status of Women would be decreased by $5 million. In October 2006 the Minister of Canadian Heritage would be implementing $5 million in savings through “greater efficiencies in the administrative operations of the Status of Women”. On November 29, 2006 the minister announced that 12 of the 16 regional offices would be shut down, in effect denying women access to critical resources across the entire country.

In response, the Conservative government has attempted to play a shell game with the budget numbers and claims that it has somehow increased funding, that is, after implementing drastic budget cuts that eliminate the ability of Status of Women to play an advocacy role and fund independent policy research, it somehow reinvests the money in terms of administrative efficiencies.

In Canada today women still earn only 70% of what their male counterparts do, and yet the Conservatives have yet to mention pay equity once in either a Speech from the Throne, the budget, or the fiscal update.

It is time for the Conservative government to abandon its fascination with calling an election and begin to focus on what Canadians sent parliamentarians to Ottawa to do in the first place. They want this Parliament to work toward a better Canada and a brighter future for women in society. For women's economic security to be enhanced, for a strategy to be implemented, women need advocacy, women need equality.

What is the government afraid of? Why is it afraid of giving equality to 52% of the population who turn out to be voters as well?

[The Environment, October 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, governments that actually care about climate change are in Lisbon, but our environment minister just sits over there with his rusty old plan.

British Columbia and Manitoba have decided to bypass the government and take real action on their own. There can be no Canadian plan when the Prime Minister refuses to work with the provinces and leaves premiers to show international leadership.

When will the Prime Minister finally call a first ministers meeting and work with the provinces instead of against them?

[The Environment, October 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government is cheating Canadians when it claims to be working with international partners to fight climate change. The only international partnerships the government joins are ones that have absolutely no targets, no timelines, no consequences and no power.

The minister supports APEC's position because it is only “aspirational”. That is two rungs below voluntary. Climate change is a global crisis requiring global effort. Why will the government not sign on with the rest of the international community and commit to solid goals?