Mr. Speaker, International Women's Day on March 8 is a day to reflect on how much women have achieved as we move toward a world of gender equality free from sexism.
It is a day to commemorate women like Nancy Riche, who recently won the AFL-CIO 2002 human rights award for her tireless work to improve the lives of working women around the world.
However women in Canada still face very real problems: 19% live in poverty and women on average still only earn 64% of men's salaries.
How is the government responding? Instead of changing EI rules for part time workers, most of whom are women, the Liberals hiked RRSP limits, which help less than 2% of women workers, and they have only delivered 3,000 of the 150,000 day care spaces needed for working women and their families.
It is time to start taking women's issues seriously again instead of sweeping them under the carpet or hoping that surfing the net, the theme from Status of Women Canada, will bring about women's equality.