Mr. Speaker, the member who just made her presentation spent some time talking about discrimination in Canada, saying that members of the Reform Party deny that there is discrimination. I do not think one Reform member of Parliament could be found who would deny that there is discrimination and that it is not a problem. I do not deny it and I do not think any of my colleagues would deny it.
If discrimination finds its way into the workplace, as members of the Reform Party have said, it should be dealt with in a tough manner. We do not tolerate it and we must not tolerate it.
The member also gave statistics to show that legislation is needed. I present a few statistics and ask the member to respond to them. These are from the 1994 employment equity report. The report said that 570,000 people are currently regulated by the present Employment Equity Act. The member spoke about this not being new legislation, that there is an Employment Equity Act in place. Of this number 45.6 per cent are women. In the Canadian workforce about 45.9 per cent are female. The difference between those in the employment equity program and those outside is .3 per cent.
In total, women occupy 47 per cent of government jobs, while 47.3 per cent are available for work. Again, a .3 per cent difference. The civilian staff of the RCMP is 82.6 per cent female; Citizenship Canada, 74 per cent female; Transport Canada, 75 per cent male. What are we going to do in these departments? Are we going to make sure we get the right quotas, get rid of women in one department and get rid of men in the other? What are we going to do?
The overall statistics in government and outside government show the employment equity program has very little effect.
Before the member responds to these statistics, the polls consistently show that Canadians are against employment equity. Approximately 70 per cent to 80 per cent of Canadians are against employment equity programs, such as this Liberal program.
I want to ask the hon. member how the Liberals can totally disregard the will of a large majority of Canadians and ignore these polls on the issue when they are so willing to accept the results of their own polls on other issues?