Mr. Speaker, this year, International Women's Day falls during our week off. That is why I rise today to pay tribute to all Canadian women from coast to coast.
Let us look around us. There are now 54 women sitting in the House of Commons. We have come a long way since Agnes McPhail became the first woman elected to the House of Commons in 1921; since the judiciary committee of the Privy Council finally recognized, in 1929, that women were persons in the eyes of the law; since Carine Wilson became the first woman appointed to the Senate in 1930.
Women have left their mark in all their fields of activity despite the obstacles that keep springing up in their way, simply because our society is still tainted by widespread and offensive sexism.
To our mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, colleagues and friends, to all women in Canada, I say thank you.