Thank you very much.
Mr. Chair, this is clearly a complex and very difficult bill, and it's difficult for everybody around this table. Whatever way we go is a no win. Whatever way we go there will be litigation. Whatever way we go there will be people who are dissatisfied. I have a great deal of difficulty, in this day and age, supporting any proposition, any amendment, that would consciously leave one group of people in this country less equal than others, and in this situation, it's clearly aboriginal women, or some aboriginal women and their children, who would be less equal than others.
I know Ms. Crowder's effort this morning to put the motion before Parliament was to deal with the issue in a manner that's respectful to all parties, to allow this committee to do its work.
I want to read into the record, because I think it came after we had hearings, a brief that came from LEAF, the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund, which has often been an intervenor on a number of equality cases at the Supreme Court. They say in their brief, and I hope you'll bear with me so I can read this:
The Government of Canada can and should amend the Indian Act to fully and finally eliminate sex discrimination from the status provisions. The Government of Canada is not limited to implementing only the remedy required by the British Columbia Court of Appeal in Mclvor v. Canada. The Court’s ruling in Mclvor does not create a “rigid constitutional template”. The Supreme Court has affirmed the role of Parliament to “build” on a Court’s ruling, particularly where the judicial scheme “can be improved” by the legislature. For example, in its decision in R. v. O’Connor in 1995, the Supreme Court of Canada laid down a procedure for the disclosure of confidential records of sexual assault complainants which purported to balance the equality rights of complainants and the rights of accused to full answer and defence. In 1997, Parliament enacted amendments to the Criminal Code which differed from the procedure delineated by the Court and which ostensibly went further to protect women’s equality rights and protect their confidential records from disclosure to those accused of sexually assaulting them. In upholding the new legislation in R. v. Mills in 1999, the Supreme Court of Canada emphasized the importance of Parliament building on the Court’s earlier decision in O’Connor.
Mr. Chair, as parliamentarians who have heard from a whole host of witnesses who are all aware of the inherent inequity in this bill and that there will be intended consequences of gender discrimination, gender inequality, I think it's incumbent upon us as legislators that we move forward with my colleague's amendment. I would hope that we would speak out with some unanimity on the reality of what gender equality means in this country.