Mr. Speaker, it is good to rise to take part in the debate today and I thank the member opposite for her comments on the motion.
I would like to bring a couple of things to the debate and maybe get closer to the surroundings we are in today. I want to talk about the fact that in our cabinet we have a number of women, ministers and parliamentary secretaries. In my personal opinion, they are doing a tremendous job. The issue of their gender never comes into the discussion at any time because of the tremendous work they are doing.
I would like to draw to the attention of the member the comments that came from the Climate Action Network. Maybe we could get her comments on it as we talk about the status of women. This was brought to our attention yesterday regarding the Minister of the Environment for the Government of Canada, who is a lady.
These comments, to me, were completely inappropriate. That organization posted comments on its website about the minister's hair. This is a minister who has worked extremely hard, probably as hard as any member in the House or any minister, to bring forward a clean air act, which took a tremendous amount of effort. Whether the hon. member agrees with that or not, the effort that was put into the clean air act to make it happen was huge. She has the support of the government and many good people in Canada on this issue. One of the comments was, “Since assuming the presidency, Rona found time away from her hairdresser--”
This, to me, is completely inappropriate. I would like the member who just spoke to let Canadians know how she feels about this type of comment coming from this type of organization.