Mr. Speaker, I think it is extremely important. In fact, the group the hon. member mentioned, REAL Women, is on a list of people who will come before us. I look forward to hearing from that group. Clearly its objective is to promote not the equality issues that we are talking about. Its status is to promote feminist policies, and that is what it is worried about.
Let me mention what we did as Liberals in some of those years when we were in office. Parliament established the Standing Committee on the Status of Women in September 2004. In October 2005, an expert panel, not a partisan panel, was created and provided advice that we needed to increase the funding for the standing committee. In 2000, parental benefits were extended to families for an extra year. We created the centres of excellence for women's health and the gender and health institute to work on health policy issues unique to women. We committed $32 million on an annual basis for the national crime prevention initiative and another $7 million for the family violence initiative.
The Liberals did many things to make sure that we were standing up for family values, to make sure there was sufficient money invested in families and women's issues and in making sure that our country had the skills needed to move it forward.
For the new Conservative minority government to put its marker down on issues like this by cutting the budget in half, regardless of whether it is $46 million or $23 million, is not the point. The point is, it was doing some good work. The message it sends is clearly, that is not the Canada that I want.