Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the Bloc for her comments and concerns in this area. We all have a vested interest in the whole question of the equitable standards that women live and work in.
There are three women in my family whom I love very much. Two of them are working. They would like to see from government a greater reduction in the taxes they have to pay. They look at their paycheques and they would like to see more expendable income left for them to support their children and buy the goods and services they need. I believe every working woman in the country would like to see that. That is how to strengthen the economic stability of working women.
What has happened? The government participated in taking50 cents in taxes in one form or another from every dollar a working woman earns. I think this is wrong.
In addition, in the next six years or so working women will have to pay another 9 or 10 per cent on their Canada pension contributions. This is what is weakening the economic stability of working women. Over the last month these policies have resulted in 44,000 women becoming unemployed and their children living in poverty.
When I hear the minister across the way speak as she did this morning about all the wonderful things the government is doing for women, I cannot help but fight the feeling and thoughts of hypocrisy that well up in my mind. It was reprehensible, pathetic rhetoric.
The best way to help working women and the children living poverty is by examining the policies that led to the situation. What policies over the last two and a half decades led to child poverty and were recognized by the government?
One child in five is supposedly living in poverty. If the child is living in poverty the family is living in poverty. How could we expect anything but that when the three levels of government are taking 50 cents from every dollar they earn? How can we expect anything but poverty for these women and their children?
I listened very carefully to my colleague's comments. I would like her to address the policies of the government that have led to family and child poverty which the government recently recognized exists directly as a result of the policies of the government.