Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak however briefly on the bill which I do not support.
I am a feminist. I am a very proud feminist. I am very proud of the government's record, particularly at the recent Beijing conference, particularly on supporting the plan of action, and most particularly on the matters mentioned by my hon. colleague with respect to setting the stage for Beijing and gender analysis, a policy which is long overdue.
I do not say that just to be combative. I do not say it just to disagree with my hon. colleague over there, or indeed with my hon. colleague from Central Nova. I say it because I think there is a deep misunderstanding in certain segments of society.
Before I became a feminist and before I became a parliamentarian I was a woman, a daughter and a granddaughter. I am still all those things. I come from an amazingly wonderful family. I was brought up by a single parent. My father died at the age of 39, leaving mother with heavy burdens because there was no medicare. My mother educated herself and she educated me. She brought me up to believe in tolerance and equality for all. She also brought me up within the context of a larger extended family, those aforementioned grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins to the third and fourth degree. It was a typical Nova Scotia and Cape Breton family.
On behalf of feminists across the country I resent the insinuation that we are not family oriented. Because we believe in gender equality, because we believe in freedom from fear and freedom from violence, because we believe in pay equity and employment equity, because we believe women hold up half the sky, I resent the theory that we should be told we are anti-family. We are not anti-family. We are the people who hold the flame every bit as much as my hon. colleague across the floor or my hon. colleague from Central Nova.
On this side of the House there are mothers, grandmothers, married women, single women and divorced women who have children of their own or who are loving godparents, aunts or whatever to many children. We care and we care deeply. No one has the right to equate feminism with an anti-family stand. No one has the right to question the way we feel about our families.
I love my family as much as I love my country and the two are interchangeable. It is shameful for anyone to suggest otherwise.