Madam Speaker, I am bringing to the attention of the House an issue that I have raised repeatedly. It is the issue of raced based hiring quotas and the government's hiring practices.
I understand that the member opposite is going to respond to my question. I suspect that he has a verbiage of talking points that has been supplied to him by the Liberal government, but I would like him to drop that and listen to what I am about to say.
We can either hire people based on their merit and qualifications, or we can do racial inventories and racial profiling and hire people on that basis. In other words, we can either assure equality of opportunity, or we can legislate equality of outcome.
I am standing here today to say that legislating equality of outcome does not and cannot work. It breeds resentment and is unfair and discriminatory. If the parameter is based on race, then it is fundamentally racial discrimination. It is not possible to discriminate in favour of someone on the basis of their race without simultaneously and unfairly discriminating against someone else because of their race. To give someone else an advantage based on their racial ancestry or their skin colour means that someone else has to be discriminated against. I think it is a fundamental truth.
Furthermore, to have these policies and these racial hiring quotas that discriminate in favour of one racial group and against others is very demeaning to the group that is discriminated in favour of because it basically says that because of their racial ancestry or their skin colour they are inferior and not capable of competing on a level playing field and they need this extra advantage. I think that is insulting, demeaning and offensive. Furthermore, it is simultaneously offensive and demeaning to the people who are discriminated against based on their skin colour.
Does the member opposite not understand that? To me it is extremely simple and obvious. Let us cut to the chafe, put down the talking points and talk about this one on one.
Madam Speaker, I look at you sitting in the Chair. Did you get the position because you are a woman? I would hope not and in fact I know not. You got the position because you attained it and deservedly so.
Should we then say that the next Speaker has to be a man? I would say not necessarily so. Should men begrudge women who sit in the Speaker's chair because they attained it on their own abilities and qualifications? Heck no.
Whoever is sitting in the Speaker's chair of the House of Commons should be there because they deserved it and they earned and attained that right. We should not pre-judge, prejudice or discriminate against anyone based on gender, skin colour, ancestry, race. We should all be equal and let equality of opportunity prevail.