Madam Speaker, as we rise to speak in the House today certainly our first thoughts are for the families who five years later still live with the pain of losing their children, more specifically losing their daughters.
What stunned the whole country five years ago on December 6 was not only that 14 young people just beginning their lives lost their lives, but that women were specifically singled out to die on that day. Men were moved out of the way so that the women alone could be shot. As a mother of two daughters in that age group I can only imagine the pain those families still feel.
Today I want to talk about how we as women live in society and why it is so important that all people particularly men understand that. I want to talk about the feelings of powerlessness that are ours from the time we become conscious of ourselves as human beings. It is vital that everyone understand that women live their lives differently. That difference is vitally important to society. It is vitally important to us as women that decisions not be made only on the basis of who is strongest and most powerful.
I realize it is very difficult for many men to understand what this means to women. Most men have grown up knowing from the time they were little boys that they would be big and strong, that they would have important jobs. That is not the way little girls grow up.
Most women have grown up knowing from the time they were little girls of less than two that they would always be smaller than their male counterparts, they would always be weaker, would never be as important, would never account for quite as much in society. They would never have as much money and for many they would never have money of their own. Their job would be to clean up after everybody else. They would always be good little girls because if they were not daddy might get cross, or mommy might get cross because daddy did not like it.
This is why as we grow into women every day and every minute of our lives is regulated by the fact that we are women. We decide differently than men where it is safe to go at what time of day, whether we can go alone or whether we need to find somebody to go with us.
I doubt there is a man in this House who approaches his car in the parking lot at night with the same fear a woman does. It is important for us to understand this is why it is so important to women to have a different kind of society. That is why we need to find measures to equalize our treatment.
When I was teaching my 17-year old daughter to drive I taught her to lock the doors always when she was alone in the car, even in broad daylight, and never to get into a car at night without checking the back seat to ensure nobody was hiding there. What I was doing was teaching her fear, the same fear that I and every woman live with daily. When I taught my son to drive a year later it never even occurred to me to give him the same lessons because he did not need them.
This feeling of being powerless, of always having to be just a little bit afraid, is partly what leads to the kinds of violence we have become so much aware of. It is what leads to the exploitation of women in a number of different ways around the world. It is what leads to the exploitation and abuse of power over women as a universal phenomenon. It is why women tend not to report crimes against themselves as easily or as readily. They know that doing so immediately places them in a situation where they again are powerless. Others are in control and they can be hurt more.
The motion today is so important. It is an expression of this House that this matters to us as parliamentarians, as the leaders of our communities and our country. It reinforces our hope and determination to change it.
I recall a report a couple of years back on why women were not in engineering. I happen to be married to an engineer, I have a son who is an engineer, and I have a son-in-law who is an engineer so I know a fair bit about engineers and what great people they can be.
I also know a fair bit about engineering faculties at universities. There is a whole culture there that is ugly and offensive to the very nature of women. It is so totally a male macho culture that no woman is comfortable in it. There are things like the fortunately now gone greased pole at Queen's. Tell me what woman wants to be an engineer when part of the initiation process is to expose herself to filth and I mean that in the most vile terms, believe me.
Why are there not more women in politics? We will not have the kinds of laws that make it easier for women to get justice until we have more women writing laws. It is not that I would write better laws than any of my male colleagues in the House; it is just that I bring a different perspective to it, a perspective I think is necessary to complete our humanity when we create laws in this House and decide how to allocate our resources.
Bertha Wilson said it best when she talked about the difference between how men and women deal with laws and why the justice system is anathema to women. The whole idea of winning and losing that seems so fundamental to our justice system also seems to be fundamentally a male concept. It is a concept promoted by those who are bigger and more powerful, who always have an equal chance of winning. It is not a concept that women are comfortable with.
I am being very open and honest today about my feelings because this motion is also about feelings. It is about pointing out that women who have been violated can turn to the justice
system that is supposed to be there to protect all of us. It is about having workplaces in which women are free from harassment.
I want to shock the House a little today. I want to read from a harassment case that has recently come to my attention. This is a young woman, 21 years old, a university student employed in a summer job. I have met with this young woman and believe me, any of us would be proud to have her as our daughter. The following is what happened in her first four days of employment in an office in this city:
He sexually harassed me by hovering over me and by touching me in an inappropriate manner. He often touched my shoulders and on one occasion ran his fingers across my neck.
This is a mature married man.
He often called me "hon" and "love". On one occasion he announced to the office that his wife was out of town for the weekend and suggested I babysit him at his home. On one occasion while helping me with a file that I had been organizing on my lap he took the opportunity to rub my upper thighs. When he asked if I understood what he had just done I said "yes", to which he added: "That is too bad. I was enjoying playing with your legs".
On one occasion he said: "The problem with kids today is that mothers enter the workforce instead of staying at home to raise them properly".
He told the following joke: What is the difference between a lawyer and a woman? To win a case a lawyer puts on his robe while a woman takes hers off.
He sometimes cornered me and used his larger size to intimidate me. He came up behind me, swivelled my chair around, placed one hand on my desk, the other on my chair, so that I was trapped between his arms and asked me what was wrong.
I saw him slap a female coworker's behind. I heard him discuss male colleagues getting lucky.
This is a 21-year old woman working in a government office enduring this. She was discouraged from making an official complaint. A year later she is still suffering from the emotional repercussions. She will not be told what action was taken against that harasser because his privacy is being protected. Yet we know that for the victim to know what action was taken is a critical part of the healing process.
I want to speak a bit about a piece of legislation that is currently before the House. Bill C-41 has had a lot of discussion. In my view it has had a lot of discussion on the wrong issues. Bill C-41 talks about making crimes committed out of hate especially heinous and subject to more strict penalties.
Bill C-41 says that if you commit a crime of violence against a woman because she is a woman out of hate, you will be punished more severely than if you commit the same crime for purposes of theft, whatever. I think that is good law because we cannot say that it is okay to hate people because they are women, because they are black, because they are Sikhs, because they are gay. Bill C-41 protects children against abuse by providing tougher penalties for people in authority who sexually or physically abuse children.
I want to support a bill that does that and I will. I want to challenge anybody who refuses to support a bill that provides that kind of protection against hate and violence in our society.
There are people who would pretend that violence is a society-wide issue and it is, but it is a different issue for women. It is a different issue for women because women have become the target of violence. I challenge any woman inside or outside this House to not remember even as a little girl when some man would rub up too closely against her deliberately on a street corner or a bus, or when she has not been accosted by some vile and foul sexual suggestions on the street.
I say to the men in this House that I do not believe they understand. I ask them to try to understand the gut wrenching caring that that kind of an incident causes. I do not think they understand how I feel when one member of Parliament stands in this House and calls a woman member of Parliament a slut. I do not think they understand how in the last week our concerns about violence have been belittled in this House by comments from the other side. I do not think they understand. I ask them to please do their best to try. It is one more way of saying to me and saying to women in this country: "You don't count as much. You don't matter as much".
We also have to talk about the economic equality of women. It very much is an issue of equality. As long as we refuse to give women the same opportunities to be economically prosperous based on their own abilities, talents and application of their energies, women will not be equal politically, equal socially and they will not be equal before our justice system.
I totally reject the arguments put forward earlier this morning by the member for Beaver River who said that violence against women is no different than violence against men. It is. As long as we refuse to face that, we refuse to face that women are killed by men who are close to them, who are their husbands, their lovers, their partners, because of the power relationship. Until we accept that we are not going to understand the problem. If you do not understand the problem you cannot solve it.
It is fine to say these issues affect all members of our society, as the member for Beaver River did this morning, but that is turning a blind eye to the specific and serious problems that this motion before the House today wishes to address and that is very specifically the kind of violence that is directed against women because they are women.
Yes, we have grandparents and seniors who are verbally and physically abused. We have children who are physically abused. That is a reflection of a society value that says: "Power, might and strength are the most important values and if you have those you have the right to abuse others". Until we recognize that that power relationship is why so many women die as a result of violent incidents, we are not going to solve the problem. We are not going to have a better society.
I thank the House for its attention today. I thank all those who gave unanimous consent to the debating of this motion. I regret in a sense that the motion had to be watered down to deal more generally with violence in society as opposed to only violence against women on this particular day just to ensure that unanimous consent would be given.
This is an important issue. It is an issue on which our government is working. As the Minister of Justice said very recently: "We have not done enough but we will do more". I believe this kind of debate strengthens our courage and strengthens our resolve to do more and to leave to our children and grandchildren a world and a country in which all are equally valuable. I say that on behalf of both the granddaughters and the grandsons I hope to have some day.
I think men too benefit from a society in which power is not the ruling dictate, in which equality and respect for all human beings regardless of whether they are men or women is a hallmark of this society, perhaps as in no other in the world, and that is a record that I would like to see this nation achieve.