Madam Speaker, I have listened to the last three debates with great interest.
I heard the passionate debate by the hon. member for Halifax pointing out that the struggle for equality and the struggle for the ability of women to freely make their decisions are not finished yet. I listened to the hon. member for Calgary Northeast whose vision of this motion seems to be that the socialist hordes are waiting outside the door ready to trample a civilized society. Of course, the most recent speaker tried to inject some fairness into the whole debate.
I would like to tell a little story which exemplifies how slow this process has been over the years. I had the privilege of growing up in a household with a mother for whom equality was taken for granted. She was a modern language teacher educated in Paris during the 1920s when that was not supposed to happen. Her sister, my aunt with whom I talked about an hour and a half ago is a retired anaesthetist.
There was no question of income equality or gender discrimination. They were both at the top of their fields. They did what they did and were the very best at it. They were pioneers. The reason they achieved what they did was because their mother understood the importance of seeing they got an education to the utmost extent of their ability. They had the ability to make their own decisions freely and clearly then without being shackled by the things which are presently holding women back. That process has been very slow. If we do not make some kind of change or some kind of move we may be looking at the same kind of evolution 50 years from now.
A motion like this does not develop a gathering of the socialist hordes. Rather it recognizes that women who are on the move need to have the freedom to make those decisions on their own. Hon. members will be able to relate to many situations right now of women who are precluded from deciding their futures on their own terms.
Does the hon. member not agree with the necessity of being free to make decisions? Does she not agree that all women do not yet have that capability and that perhaps we in this House have some opportunity to advance their cause?