Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the minister responsible for the status of women for holding on to her position in the new cabinet at a time when many other women lost their places. I wish her well in the challenging days ahead.
I particularly wish her well given the challenges posed to her by the absence of any concrete reference to status of women issues in the Speech from the Throne. It is interesting to note how invisible women are in that road map. Women just do not seem to have a place in the future direction as envisaged by the government. In fact, it is interesting that the word “woman” was only mentioned twice just in passing.
We have some big challenges ahead of us, especially in terms of Canada's failure to comply with the convention on the elimination of discrimination against women.
As a starting place I would like to ask the minister if she would support the notion of having a parliamentary standing committee on the status of women. It is something that more and more women from all sides of the House are talking about and proposing. We would like to advance that idea with the hope that the House leaders would agree and that all parties would come together with the formation of such a standing committee, so that we would have a permanent place for discussing women's issues and a forum for dealing with many of our failures to live up to UN obligations.
Would the minister responsible for the status of women support that idea? Could she give us her commitment to help us ensure that it comes to pass?