Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank my colleague the member for Yukon for sharing his time with me. I rise today in the House of Commons to give my support to the motion presented by my colleague, the member for Markham—Unionville.
I am sorry that the people on the other side of the House who speak English are now leaving. I believe when someone speaks in French in this House it is just as interesting as when someone speaks in English, especially since we have simultaneous translation.
Canada’s history did not begin yesterday. It was built brick by brick by women and men from every part of the country who fought for the right to equality. Yet, with one stroke of the pen this new Conservative government has wiped out all the gains made as a result of those hard struggles for equality.
The irony in all this is that the government opposite is using women to do this dirty work. The women sign and the men give the orders. Here we are at least 100 years later and women still have to fight for equality in the shadow of the men who continue to exercise the power.
Yesterday, Persons Day was celebrated on Parliament Hill. The reception took place here in the Parliament buildings. The event took the form of an exhibition highlighting women, some better known than others. All those women had their heads severed above the neck, the mouth or the forehead. The message was powerful: women still feel cut off from society. This is what comes of the cuts by this government because as of now, from what we have heard, they are going to do away with recognition of women by the UN, by Canada, and they are going to cut strengthening of equality under the Canadian Charter of rights and Freedoms.
Here is one example among many others: the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women is a national institute that focuses on research and promotion of equality for women, and that, no doubt, will lose all of its funding of nearly $300,000 because this institute falls into the category of organizations that will no longer be funded by the government, since its mandate includes research and promotion of equality for all women.
Could it be that an $18 million cut from the literacy skills program is considered fat trimming by the government? That is a lot of fat in administrative surplus. Why is it we do not yet have the details of these cuts? Let us be transparent. That is what the opposition had asked us. Is the government afraid Canadians will find out the true ideological agenda of the Conservative government?
While the Conservative government talks about working with businesses to support the integration of newcomers, shortly after it took office in January it put on hold the entire $3.5 billion in funding that the former Liberal government had committed to labour market partnership agreements with the provinces and territories. These cuts were made despite the fact that our agreements had already been signed. These dollars would have expanded apprenticeship programs, literacy essential skills programs, workplace skills development programs and would have improved labour market integration of recent immigrants to Canada.
This will increase the inequality of newcomers by denying them access to apprenticeships and other skills development programs. Despite an apparent lack of skilled immigrants to this country, the Government of Canada has now made $18 million in new cuts to training and literacy.
In addition, it has cut $83 million from public service human resources programs. In my riding, Laval—Les Îles, the Laval Women's Group recently received a letter from this new Conservative government announcing that several million dollars would be cut from funding for literacy programs for 2007. In other words, this letter told them that they could no longer count on the roughly $80,000 they were receiving every year for their programs.
Another organization, the Table de concertation de Laval en condition féminine, is also extremely concerned that its funding, which supported its work for women's advancement, is now threatened.
This organization works to prevent violence and to effect social change in the local community. Last Monday, it launched a DVD as part of its education program. The Table does not know whether its members will be able to continue their work with women.
I am also thinking about the shelters in Laval and the Regroupement des familles monoparentales et recomposées de Laval, which will inevitably and unfortunately be affected by this government's cuts.
Violence against women has not decreased. We still regularly read horror stories about women who are murdered.
The newspapers today reported that the remains of a decapitated woman had been found in the Rideau Canal as workers were preparing the canal for the winter. This is terrible.
What we are witnessing today is the dismantling of programs that benefit newcomers, that benefit small and medium sized businesses and that benefit vulnerable Canadians who have a difficulty reading and even understanding product labels. These are Canadians who, through whatever circumstance, had to postpone their education at a very early age.
Even when the past Liberal government began cleaning up the fiscal debacle left by the previous Conservative government and we had to make tough fiscal decisions, the Liberal government never dismantled programs for vulnerable Canadians. Yes, we may have frozen program increases, but we never went so far as to dismantle programs on the scale that we are witnessing today.
The speech from my colleague from Yukon and my own, speak from two parts of Canada that are wildly different, the Yukon in the far north and my riding of Laval—Les Îles where I see people who come from the cities.
People also come from outside urban areas. There are two kinds of people, but they are all Canadians. All these Canadians will suffer and are already suffering as a result of this Conservative government's budget cuts.