I thank the honourable member for her question.
It is worth noting that this is the first private member's bill I've ever had the honour to introduce in Parliament, and I'm very proud personally to be associated with this issue. It's a statement of principle, not only on my behalf, obviously, but on behalf of the party that I have the honour to lead.
I'm just struck by those numbers. I'm just struck by the fact that women in our country do not get equal pay for work of equal value. We have not closed the gap. We've said we ought to. We've not done so.
So then the question becomes, how does the federal government lead? Many provinces have pay equity commissions. Why can't the federal government have a pay equity commission that says “let's get proactive about this”? Let's not just do this case by case when a woman has a complaint. Let's get out there and get a strategy led by a federal institution that says, “Show us the plan and show us how you plan to reduce these inequities”.
I feel ashamed as a Canadian to be in a situation where people with the same human rights as I don't get financial recognition for the value of their work. This is an inequity that needs to be reformed. We feel very strongly that the way that the actual government has gone about it, which is to turn this into a labour relations issue, doesn't create the machinery necessary to get this done on behalf of Canadian women.
So that's the path we've taken. It's a statement of our commitment to pay equity as a human right. It's a statement of commitment that the Government of Canada should be a leader in advancing pay equity for women right across federal jurisdiction. It's a statement of personal commitment on my part and it's a statement of commitment by my party.
Thank you very much for the question.