Mr. Speaker, R. v. Beaulac in 1992 is another case considered key to women's equality. The Supreme Court of Canada dealt with the constitutional validity of the definition of obscenity in section 163 of the Criminal Code. For the first time, the court articulated contextualized harms-based tests for determining when material should be considered obscene.
Now the Conservative government has taken the words “equality” out of the mandate of Status of Women. Therefore, we can participate, but we cannot be equal. Is that what we are saying? Last week, when I was in my university classrooms and on the radio locally, the thing that appalled most people was the fact that equality was taken out of the mandate of Status of Women in the mission statement.