Debates of Sept. 28th, 2006

Opposition Motion—Status of Women

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member may know that the Conservative Party of Canada does not operate by a quota system per se, that the decisions about the candidates who run for our party are made at the local level. We leave it with the membership of the riding, across 308 ridings, that those decisions are made there.

However, the example that is being set by the women in this government is an example to be seen by women across the whole country. As they tune in and see the kinds of excellent results of our women members, I can be sure that there will be more women interested in fulfilling the kinds of roles we see of our members in the House of Commons.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to speak to the motion by the hon. member for Beaches—East York.

There has been much criticism regarding the cuts to government expenditures announced this week. Hon. members from across the floor have attacked these measures as unfairly targeting certain groups, including women, women's programs and services. This is not true. The spending decisions were fair and distributed broadly over a number of program areas. They were aimed at improving efficiency and getting value for money.

Don Drummond, chief economist of TD Bank, predicted that Canada's new government would face baseless, unfounded criticism when he said, “critics charge the choice of spending cuts was “political”. This is utter silliness”.

We are focusing on our priorities and getting value for money for Canadian taxpayers, for Canadian women.

I ask all hon. members, what could be more of a priority than our children? Without a doubt, they represent the future of our country and we must provide them with every opportunity to succeed. Canada's new government recognizes that one of the most important investments a government can make is to support families as they raise their children. We have taken quick and decisive action to help those families, as promised in the last campaign.

Strong families are the cornerstone of a sound and prosperous society and are key to ensuring a bright future for Canada. Canada's new government knows that no two families are alike and that parents, not the government, are in the best position to make the right choices for their children.

We also recognize that Canadian families are changing and facing many new challenges. Work arrangements for both men and women are more complex and varied than ever before. In particular, families with young children must strike a difficult balance between work and family life. Any of my hon. colleagues with young children, and I look at you, Mr. Speaker, as I make that statement, are very aware that the availability of quality child care is a challenge for many working parents.

In budget 2006 Canada's new government helped these families by offering them a real choice in child care. Just look at what we did.

Budget 2006 introduced the new universal child care benefit. Starting this past July 1, Canada Day, this new benefit provides all families with $100 per month for each child under the age of six. That has been warmly received in Palliser. This benefit helps parents to choose the child care option that best suits their family's needs. That could be in formal child care, informal child care through neighbours or relatives or by a parent staying at home. The most important point is that parents and women and men now have a choice.

The universal child care benefit is, as the name implies, available to all families. However, and in response to the hon. member's motion, it will provide direct financial support to low income families with young children without reducing the federal income tested benefits such as the Canada child tax benefit and the national child benefit supplement for low and middle income families. As I have just outlined, the universal child care benefit illustrates how Canada's new government has chosen to focus on the priorities of Canadians.

What about low income Canadians and seniors? One of the priorities for this new government was to reduce taxes for Canadians. Our first tax reduction, as promised, was the reduction in the GST from 7% to 6%. This is a real tax cut for all Canadians, a tax cut that people can see in action whenever they buy something. This tax cut will save all Canadians money every time they go to the store. This will benefit all Canadians by almost $9 billion over two years, even those who do not pay income tax.

The GST cut is an important step in the right direction, but it is only one part of the government's plan to reduce taxes. In every way that the government takes money from Canadians, under Canada's new government, it will take less of it. That is a great news story for all Canadians. That is why budget 2006 reduced personal income taxes for all taxpayers. In fact, over 90% of the tax savings in this budget will go to individual Canadians and their families.

Our tax cut plan leaves substantially more money in the pockets of Canadians than the previous government's proposals. In fact, about 655,000 Canadians, many of them senior women, will be removed from the tax rolls entirely. Also for Canada's seniors, budget 2006 doubled to $2,000 the maximum amount of eligible pension income that can be claimed under the pension income credit. Effective for the 2006 and subsequent taxation years, this measure will benefit nearly 2.7 million taxpayers receiving eligible pension income, providing up to $155 per year, per pensioner, and will remove approximately 85,000 pensioners from the tax rolls.

Canada's new government recognizes the difficulties faced by Canadians with a disability. That is why in budget 2006 we fully implemented the recommendations of the technical advisory committee on tax measures for persons with disabilities, which was established to provide advice on tax measures for persons with disabilities.

We went beyond the committee's recommendations. For example, in the new government's first budget we increased the maximum annual child disability benefit effective July 2006. This benefit is a supplement of the Canadian child tax benefit for children in low and modest income families who meet the eligibility criteria for the disability tax credit. Effective July 2006, the budget extended eligibility for the child disability benefit to middle and higher income families caring for a child who was eligible for the disability tax credit, including virtually all families that are currently eligible for the Canada child tax base benefit.

Budget 2006 also increased the maximum amount of the refundable medical expense supplement for the 2006 taxation year. This supplement improves work incentives for Canadians with disabilities, by helping to offset the loss of coverage for medical and disability related expenses under social assistance when recipients move into the labour force.

In addition, the new government understands that parents are concerned with how best to ensure the financial security of a child with a severe disability when they are no longer able to provide support. That is why the Minister of Finance has appointed an expert panel to examine ways to help parents save for the long term financial security of a child with a severe disability. The panel has been asked to report its recommendations to the minister by November 9.

Canada's new government has taken real action to help those in our society who need help the most. We have moved to help families with children by providing choice in child care. We have moved to reduce taxes. We have moved to support Canadians with disabilities. The list goes on.

The new government has also taken action on very important issues of concern to all Canadians, aboriginal, immigrant, student issues, all of which include women.

In short, the expenditure cuts announced this week will help eliminate wasteful spending and allow Canada's new government to keep moving ahead, ensuring a strong and prosperous future for Canada. All the money that the government will spend will have to meet the criteria tests. It will have to meet two standards. It has to provide value for money and produce results for Canadians.

I am very proud to be part of this government that sticks by that creed. The finance minister brought in a fantastic budget. We are not only standing firmly behind Canadian women, that is very clear, but all Canadians.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the hon. member about the political wisdom of the government's narrow ideological meanspirited cuts which clearly played exclusively to its own political base.

I notice on the Conservative blogs many were rejoicing in these cuts because they appealed to the biases of the hard right Conservative base.

However, if it is the object of the government to reach out and expand its electorate, to get a stronger showing in the next election, why would it wish to have such narrowly focused cuts playing only to those who would vote for the government and alienating the majority of those whose votes it needs?

The $13 billion surplus first of all is a Liberal surplus because it was produced in a year when the Liberal Party was the government for 90% of that year. This was our legacy to the new Conservative government, just as its legacy to us back in 1993 was a $42 billion deficit.

My question is in terms of political intelligence related to the first. Why would the government choose to announce cuts on precisely the same day that it announced this huge surplus giving Canadians the impression it had absolutely no need to make these narrow ideologically based cuts that played only to its own base and alienated most Canadians?

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I had the pleasure of riding the bus with the member on the way over here today. I was kidding him about how he likes to repeat the phrase “meanspirited”. I know he does not mean that. He was chuckling when he said it to me.

The member opposite talks about how we are making decisions that would appeal to our political base, that being the Conservative political base. I just talked at length about tax cuts for all Canadians, about the universal child care benefit which will benefit everyone with children, and money that will go to all families with children under the age of six. I talked about how the budget will improve the lives for people with disabilities.

If our traditional base of support is all Canadians who pay taxes, everyone who has children, everyone who is disabled, need I go on, for that member it is going to be tough sledding in the next campaign if that is the case.

The member talked about the Liberal Party's surplus. We saw the member for Wascana stand up the other day really out of turn, and it was quite something, and state that he wanted his surplus back. Then we saw the President of the Treasury Board remind the member for Wascana that it was not his money. It does not belong to the Liberal Party of Canada. It belongs to the Canadian taxpayer.

That is the reason why we have a new government in power that understands who this money belongs to.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, hearing the comments like meanspirited, if the Liberals were in government they would raise the GST back up because they voted against that. They voted against providing parents the choice in child care. They want to take back that $100 a month for children. That would be meanspirited.

I have a question that relates to the comments that have been made about REAL Women. REAL Women is going to be coming to the committee. I am looking for some wisdom from the member who just spoke. I have been on committees for many years. My understanding is that when a delegation is coming to a committee that the committee is open-minded and the committee is prepared to listen to delegates that come and dialogue in order to learn.

However, when we have the chairperson of a committee publicly ridiculing a delegation that is about to come, like REAL Women, I have real concerns that democracy may be under attack. We hear rhetoric now and heckling. Is that a good approach for a delegation coming? I would like to hear an answer.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, for the chair of that committee to make such statements is just crazy. These are Canadians. These are Canadian taxpayers. The beauty of our system is the fact that we live in a parliamentary democracy. We should welcome everyone's input.

I do have to take issue with one of my colleague's comments. He talked about how members opposite voted against our budget. The member for Markham—Unionville knows that the budget was unanimously adopted for the first time in the history of British parliamentary tradition, and we are very proud of that. It was unanimously adopted because of the great things that are in it.

The motion before us today talks about recognizing “the many roles of women in Canadian society and the importance of providing all Canadian women with equal opportunity”. I could not agree more. That is the goal.

Our government has done exactly that. Our government has given women choices. The choice is easier for women who have children and choose to go back to work. Money is available for child care, for women who choose to stay home, or men for that matter, with their children. The budget provides opportunities to all Canadian parents. We could not be more proud.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured and pleased to rise this afternoon to support this Liberal motion.

First, I would like to discuss the economic aspect of the issue. I would then like to address the importance of applying a gender lens to these political issues.

I would like to begin by talking about women and the economy. Not because the economic aspect is more important than any other—it is not—but because I am an economist. I therefore have some ideas on the subject.

It is in society's best interest to eliminate all barriers blocking members of any group from participating fully in the economy and the labour market.

In other words, we want to break through the glass ceiling in the case of women, or we want to end racial discrimination in the case of visible minorities.

From a purely economic point of view, if we do not do that, then clearly society is the poorer for it because systemic barriers will prevent people from making their maximum contribution to the economy and to society. Not only the individuals in question will be the poorer for it but so will their family and so will society at large.

I saw recently an interesting case of this on television where the principal of a school in Afghanistan was being interviewed. This was a school in which girls were to be educated. His answer was purely in terms of economics. He said that Afghanistan needed girls, who would grow up later to be women, to become productive members of the Afghanistan economy because it is a desperately poor country today and if it does not have the full participation of half of its population in that economy, it will remain desperately poor for a long time.

I am certainly not trying to say that there is a close parallel between the state of Afghanistan and the state of Canada, but the point of principle is the same one. In the extreme case of Afghanistan, if it does not get those women educated and into the labour force, Afghanistan will remain poor.

On a much smaller scale in this country, if we do not ensure the full participation and the right to participate of all women, of all minority groups, of all members of any group in our society, then Canada will be the poorer. From an economic point of view, then, this is the case for breaking down the barriers, breaking through the glass ceiling to ensure the full participation of women and other groups in society.

Just to be clear, I am not saying this is the most important element at all. I think considerations of fairness and social justice are primary, but I think it is nevertheless an element that is worth mentioning.

Mr. Speaker, I forgot to mention that I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Laval—Les Îles.

My second theme is the importance of this gender lens. My comments are based partly on my experience in government, which I will come to in just a minute.

It seems to me that one of the most important reasons to preserve and promote Status of Women Canada is the advocacy and educational role that is played by the minister responsible for the status of women.

If only because a large majority of cabinet and caucus members is male, we need an advocate with some clout to educate all of us and to ensure that all policies are seen through a gender lens as well, of course, as two other lenses.

To illustrate this, I would like to take the example of a different kind of lens, a rural lens. I have a keen memory of endless lectures by a former colleague, Andy Mitchell, now the chief of staff of the Leader of the Opposition, who had responsibility for rural Canada. I remember his lectures on the importance of rural Canada and the importance of seeing everything we did through a rural lens. While the lectures may have been a bit repetitive, they certainly affected my thinking and helped me to understand the importance of rural issues.

It is not that I or any of my urban colleagues were anti-rural, not in the slightest, but all of us parliamentarians are busy people. We do not always study every issue from every angle at every moment. It helps to have that voice reminding us of our rural responsibilities.

I would argue that exactly the same principle applies in the case of women, just as most of our caucus is urban, so, too, the majority is male. I have equally vivid memories of Lisa Frulla as the former minister responsible for the status of women, along with many of her colleagues, reminding us incessantly that everything we do had to be seen through a gender lens as well as through other kinds of lenses.

I would submit that if we in the Liberal Party had need of someone to focus on the gender lens, the need of the Conservative Party for such a person is far more pressing. Only 13% of the government's caucus is female. We would have to go back to the last Conservative government of Brian Mulroney, more than 10 years ago, to find a government caucus where the percentage of females was as low as the government's percentage is today.

If any government in Canada, for at least a dozen years, if not for a century, had the need for a gender lens and the need for a number of people to remind the cabinet and the caucus of the importance of that lens, it is the government sitting over there.

That is why, as chair of the expenditure review committee when we were in government, I said no right away when the bureaucracy proposed that we abolish Status of Women Canada. My committee colleagues immediately concurred with my feeling on this subject. When we were presented with this idea, just as the government has been, we immediately said no but the present government leapt at the opportunity and said yes.

This need for a gender lens is also why we in government, when we were doing our expenditure review, applied gender based analysis to all the issues that came before the expenditure review committee.

Sadly, the minority Conservative government has decided to go the other way. It has cut $5 million from the budget of Status of Women Canada. To the extent it applied any gender based analysis at all, it seems that the lens was focused in the wrong direction, that is to say that it was directed against women rather than in their favour. Why else would the government have cut this flagship program dedicated to improving the status of women?

I might say that this is not the only cut that the Conservatives announced yesterday, which had a distinctly anti-women bias. In general, I do not think Canadians have ever witnessed such meanspirited, ideological cuts, juxtaposed on the same day that the government announced it was swimming in a $13 billion surplus.

Among those other cuts that were specifically hurting women more than men, I would mention a number of others other than Status of Women: women's access to legal rights, the protection of minority rights, the protection of the social economy and cuts in funding to community organizations dealing with poverty and abuse. These organizations affect not only women. They affect women and men but in many cases, disproportionately, these cuts will have a negative impact on women.

These cuts, partly biased against women, were clearly ideological cuts playing to the narrowest of bases, rather than government actions designed to promote the well-being of all Canadians.

I will end with a question. Is it not high time that the government focused on doing what is right for all Canadians, and particularly for Canadian women, rather than focusing exclusively on doing what is right for the Conservative Party?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed listening to the hon. member's speech and I listened quite attentively. I think, quite frankly, the opposition is beating a drum that Canadian society is not dancing to at this particular time.

We have read articles in the newspapers and we have certainly heard the TD chief economist, Dale Orr, and another gentleman speak quite positively about the measures the government has taken. Quite frankly, the new government wants to spend funds effectively, efficiently and accountably because it is the taxpayers' money, which is really what we are talking about here.

In fact, we know the government has taken measures that allows us to save $48 million a year just in the operations of government by having a smaller cabinet. That is 20 times what we are talking about here today.

I think what we are really talking about is that the Liberal benches cannot understand how a government that may go to another election is prepared to do so on a banner of effective, efficient and accountable spending and not trying to buy votes. Perhaps the member might comment on that.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to comment on that. We are not talking about cuts that the government needs to make to balance the budget. We are not talking about cuts that are very large in dollar terms.

When I was chair of expenditure review we had savings of $11 billion over five years, far larger than the Conservative government has done, so it should not really boast about how much money it has saved.

The main point is the nature of those cuts. Contrary to our cuts, which were focused on government efficiencies and doing things more efficiently, not hurting individuals in need, not hurting depressed regions and all of the job implications suffered by attrition, these cuts are against those who are not part of the Conservative base. They target the most vulnerable, whether they be adults needing literacy training, youth needing employment opportunities or status of women, and I could go on.

However, it is not the amount of the cuts, it is the ideological nature of those cuts which the Conservatives are directing toward the most vulnerable in society. Canadians will stand up against these cuts because, by and large, Canadians are a fair-minded people. They appreciate the need for cuts when the government has a fiscal problem but they do not appreciate a government single-mindedly going after the most vulnerable in our society.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member was part of a government that also saw surpluses in recent years. He also says that he was part of a government that took into account gender based analysis when it was making its decision. Why then did that government do so miserably when it came to addressing poverty and the women who live in poverty in Canada?

We know that one in five Canadian women live in poverty, that is 2.8 million women. We know that 56% of lone parent families headed by women are poor; that 49% of single, widowed and divorced women over the age of 65 are poor; that 23.9% of women 65 and older are poor, which is twice the rate of men over 65; that 46% of women in shelters are of aboriginal descent; and that in 2000 the median income for aboriginal women was $12,300, about $5,000 less than their non-aboriginal female counterparts.

Given all of that, given that there were surpluses, given that gender based analysis was apparently being applied, why is the Liberals' record still so bad when it comes to poverty? Why did the Liberals not manage to address that issue?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is a double problem with those sanctimonious kinds of interventions by the NDP. The first is that the NDP has no sense of fiscal responsibility. The NDP has never been government and never will be government so it can tell us to spend money in absolutely unlimited quantities, by the hundreds or the tens of billions.

The second problem is that the NDP has itself brought about these cuts by siding with the Conservative government and helping to bring it into existence.

The other answer I would give is that I am proud of the Liberal record. If we look over the post-war period, yes, there is always more work to be done, yes, nothing is perfect, but over the last decade the Liberal government and preceding Liberal governments have made enormous progress in dealing with the poverty of the elderly and have made enormous progress in dealing with child poverty through child tax credits now coming to $10 billion plus per year.

We are proud of our record, even though at the same time we understand there will always be more work to do and more challenges out there. However, unlike the NDP, we also must look at the nation's finances and phase in those reforms as the funds become available.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I too rise today to take part in the debate and to lend my support to women's rights to equality in Canada.

I hope that by the end of this debate, the House will not only recognize the Conservative government's failure to provide all Canadians equal opportunity, but will also categorically oppose the government's partisan and discriminatory cuts to federal funding of women's programs and services.

These cuts that the Conservative government have just announced to us and to Canada as a whole represent nearly 50% of the operating budget for Status of Women Canada.

Women make up 52% of our society. Women are more than just mothers, sisters, spouses and the conscience of our nation; they are the reason this nation survived the great difficulties of past few centuries and the reason it continues to exist.

These cuts by the Conservative government ignore the fact that women's rights are human rights. “Women's rights are human rights” are not my words. I did not make this up. This quote came from the global community of women at the World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. That is why the Liberal government supported the Native Women's Association of Canada. The Liberal government gave the association $5 million over five years to be used to end violence against aboriginal women.

I have decided in this part of my speech to focus on concrete examples to illustrate how this Conservative government's cuts will affect very specific groups of women. I just mentioned the Native Women's Association of Canada. In addition to the $5 million over five years for that association there are other cuts, $2.1 billion over five years for improving financial assistance for students and $1.3 billion over five years to improve services for setting up and integrating new immigrants to Canada. These groups are often at the bottom of the social scale and at the bottom of the socio-financial scale—if I can put it that way. These are the groups that will suffer and are already cruelly suffering because of the Conservative government's cuts.

The Liberal government’s support for the National Association of Women and the Law gave that organization the impetus it needed for its recent and effective campaign against Sharia law, an arbitrary process based on religion, when it was thought that it might be incorporated into the legal fabric of this country. That was one of a number of recommendations made by Marion Boyd, a former Ontario Minister of Justice during the very short-lived reign of the NDP government.

The financial support provided by our government gave voice to women across Canada. Muslim women, Christian women, Jewish women, women of every other religion, worked with NAWL to ensure that women’s rights continue to be an integral and fundamental part of women’s equality in Canada. Once again, a coalition of women, of spouses, mothers, sisters and daughters, of every religion and from every political party, came together and were able to do that thanks to the funding provided by the former Liberal government. They will no longer be able to come together, because this new Conservative government, in its opposite, contrary and negative way, is not providing the funding.

By cutting funding for status of women organizations, this government is trying to ensure that women do not have an opportunity to be part of the decision-making process in this country, because they will no longer have access to any funding. Why say that? Because this government is sending a clear message to women, saying that we, women, have no place at the table when decisions are made, that our place, women’s place, is in the kitchen, once again.

What century is this? The 21st century, or the first century, or the second?

While the Prime Minister and his government are busy reducing women’s opportunity to sit at the table where the decisions are made, rather than standing up doing the housework and cooking 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the Prime Minister’s wife—she being a woman—is distributing one of our national newspapers to encourage women to improve their reading skills. This is a woman who knows what needs to be done. In spite of the negative things that the government led by her husband is doing, she believes that literacy levels among women, women’s independence, the ability to make a choice and to be able to make choices, are truly and essentially something to which all women have a right.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, once again I listened with great interest to what the hon. member had to say.

I have to admit that the hypocrisy from the Liberal benches never ceases to amaze me. We hear comments about being meanspirited. We hear comments about cuts.

I would like the hon. member to comment on the cuts made to provincial transfers, enormous cuts on the back of health care, on the back of welfare, cuts that indeed bled down to the municipalities. Were they meanspirited or were they kind cuts? Was that a kind way to cut from the Canadian public?

I think that finding efficient, effective and accountable spending practices here in Ottawa is what the taxpayers want. I would like to hear what she has to say.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians, and Canadian women in particular, know very well that there is a huge difference between the budget cuts made today by the Conservative government and the unfortunate budget cuts of our Liberal government.

I do not need to remind the public, both here in the House and elsewhere in Canada, that our budget cuts had to be made because when we took power in 1993, there was a huge budget deficit. The only way to deal with it was to pay it off as quickly as possible.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Oh, oh!

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Since my hon. colleague for Peterborough has not been here very long, I would like to point out to him that these cuts were due to the deficit run by the Government of Canada, a deficit that all Canadians had to shoulder and pay for with their taxes every year. It was the deficit left by a Conservative government that spent too much and on the wrong things.

Unfortunately, we had to make cuts in some places because we had no other choice. It was because of the Conservatives’ deficit, though, that we were forced to do it.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Laval—Les Îles for all the figures she provided.

I would like to go back to one of the figures she mentioned. I think the figure of $1.5 billion for the integration of women immigrants is a bit high. Did she say million or billion? In addition, over how many years was this money spread and how was it distributed geographically?

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am quoting the figures I have in front of me and that I read earlier: an additional grant of $1.3 billion over five years to improve settlement and integration services for new immigrants.

If the hon. member wants more information, I will gladly forward the exact amount of this grant, but those are the figures I have in front of me.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I know that the member has a keen interest in immigration policies. I want to ask her about the situation of women who, after sponsoring a spouse for permanent residence, find that the spouse had entered into marriage only to gain permanent resident status in Canada.

Often this situation leads to the end of a marriage and family breakdown, which is not surprising, and often domestic violence was a part of the relationship. However, the sponsorship agreement with the federal government means that the Canadian spouse, the woman, remains financially responsible for the ex-spouse for years. Provincial governments are going after those victimized women for social service payments, for instance, to their ex-spouses, often ruining these women financially and victimizing them again. They are victimized once by the offending spouse and once by the government.

Why did the Liberal government not take any initiative to address the hardship caused by the enforcement of sponsorship agreements in situations of family breakdown and domestic violence? Could the hon. member comment?

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is an extremely important question. However, before I answer, I would just like to say that what the Liberal government was able to do for years is not what we are discussing today. We are discussing the budget cuts that this Conservative government is making, to the detriment of women. I would just like to point that out.

I understand my colleague's question, but I do not understand why he is placing emphasis on women, when we know that the vast majority of people who are sponsored across this country are women sponsored by men, and not the reverse. I acknowledge that some women sponsor men, but for the most part, it is men who immigrate here and then send for their wives or spouses.

That said, it is true that a person who agrees to sponsor his or her spouse has a financial responsibility. Our government has always wanted that responsibility to be the same whether the sponsor is a woman or a man, because that person has signed and accepted that responsibility.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to participate in today's important debate.

The women in my riding are worried because of the actions of this government. Unfortunately, some of our worst fears have been confirmed. This government wants to do away with the progress we have made on women's rights.

But it is not surprising that millions of dollars are being cut from essential programs and that Status of Women Canada is also at risk. It is not surprising because this government, which only recently came to power, has done everything it can to hit important programs and policies that help women and their families in Canada.

This is not surprising from a government that killed the meagre beginnings of a national child care program.

Year after year and election after election, we were promised that such a program would be created. In 1993, 1997 and 2000, the former Liberal governments promised us help and failed to deliver in spite of majority governments and surplus budgets. Finally, after enough pressure from more New Democrat MPs, we were seeing the beginning of such a national program.

It was not surprising that we would see a cut to women's programs from a Conservative government whose committee chairs are all men and whose caucus is made up of just 11% women MPs. I am proud to stand on this side of the House with strong women's voices in the NDP caucus, more than 40%, and we will do even better next time.

It is not surprising that these Conservatives would cut programs to some of the most vulnerable in our society. It is not surprising from a party that believes our foreign policy should move so drastically away from our proud peacekeeping tradition and move closer to that of George W. Bush.

This anti-insurrection war, with its search-and-destroy operations in southern Afghanistan, is a bad mission for Canada. There is no resolution in sight, and this mission is not bringing peace to Afghanistan.

It came as no surprise this week that the government announced millions of dollars in cuts to women's programs.

We have a Prime Minister who prefers war to dialogue and political solutions.

That is why I speak in favour of the motion presented today. The motion is important because of the work of Status of Women Canada.

Status of Women Canada promotes gender equality and the full participation of women in the economic, social, cultural, and political life of Canada. It focuses on improving women's economic autonomy and well-being, eliminating systemic violence against women and children, and advancing women's human rights. It works to provide Canadians with strengthened and more equitable public policy by conducting gender based analysis and promoting its application throughout the federal government. It supports the work of women's organizations and other equality-seeking organizations.

I agree with all of these goals and so do women I speak with in my riding. My question to government members is this: which of these goals do they not support? How many of these priorities are expendable to the Conservative caucus here in the House?

This government plans to cut 40% of Status of Women Canada's budget. These funds would have been used to develop policies, communicate with Canadians, and provide vital subsidies to volunteer organizations that lack funds.

Apparently, there is no money for Status of Women Canada and the important work it does, even though there is a $13 billion surplus and even though we are giving over a billion dollars in subsidies to the oil industry, which has more money than it knows what to do with. If this government really wanted to cut the fat, that is where it would start.

This motion is ironic, perhaps even cynical, because it was put forward by the Liberals. During their three majority mandates, the Liberals never kept their promises about daycare, and they categorically refused to legislate pay equity.

This motion comes from the same Liberal Party which, when in power, delivered the biggest cutbacks in history to transfer payments for health and education.

It left Canadians without a national housing program, the only industrialized country in the world without one; and of course this continues with the current government.

It reduced eligibility for employment insurance and saw child poverty rise under its watch.

Oh, yes, we know the Liberals were going to do it, but 13 years just was not enough, and if they had only had another chance. I do not buy that and Canadians did not buy it either.

That betrayal meant that we live in a country in which, despite its great wealth, despite its natural abundance in human capacity, we still see one in five Canadian women living in poverty. That is 2.8 million women who are struggling to get by and struggling to feed and clothe their children.

During a briefing for the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women, Status of Women Canada discussed two important areas in which Canada is not making enough progress.

Women are more likely to be poor because of a number of factors, including single parenthood, disabilities, immigration and racial discrimination. In Toronto, in my riding, the poorest people are often women. They show great courage in their daily struggle to survive.

Nevertheless, despite the important information that Status of Women Canada provided to the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women, she said, and I quote, “Our government is not a government that keeps institutions alive just for the sake of keeping them alive”.

Perhaps it should not be surprising that an institution which is providing such sobering facts about women and poverty should be threatened with silence, this from a Prime Minister who made these cuts with no consultation and no debate and from a government that has cut the court challenges program that helps women and others, such as linguistic minorities, access funding to test equality cases.

As I stated in this House yesterday, what arrogance. It is this controlling nature that deeply disturbs us.

I urge this House to support the motion before us today, which rightfully chides the new government for failing to recognize the importance of women in Canadian society, in spite of the fact that it is presented by a party that so often failed Canadian women when it was in power.

Still, we must stand together today and stand up to a government that is rolling back the clock on women's equality even before we fully got there, a government that is clearly taking this country in the wrong direction.

[Helena Guergis, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, having been a member of the Standing Committee for Status of Women since 2004, I heard, as did many other members participating on that committee, from many witnesses and many advocacy groups, all of whom had very different opinions of the work of Status of Women Canada.

Of course we did hear some comments that Status of Women Canada was doing some very good work. We did hear that at committee. We also heard a different opinion. We heard from, as I said, some advocacy groups who were not pleased with the work of Status of Women Canada and expressed some serious concerns. They were not sure about its mandate. They were not pleased.

Why does the hon. member choose to ignore these facts? In fact, if she wanted to check Hansard, the testimony and the evidence are there. Perhaps she would care to comment on that.

I would also like to remind her I am a woman as well, and I and many women in the Conservative caucus are concerned to hear other women in this House who believe they can speak on our behalf. They cannot speak on my behalf.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I remind the member that Margaret Thatcher was a woman. It did not mean that she believed in women's equality. The issue we are talking about are organizations that are feminist in nature, that believe in women's equality, that promote and want to advance women's equality. That is where the majority of women in this country are at. They believe that we should be moving further along toward women's equality.

There are so many women and men in my riding who tell me about the difficulties they have finding child care. Even if they could find their way to the top of a list of 300 people waiting for child care in their neighbourhood, they cannot afford the $1,300 plus that it would cost to pay for child care every month. These are the very real bread and butter issues that women and indeed families across Canada are concerned about.

Does it mean that every family, every woman in fact, believes the same thing? Of course not. In a democracy there is a diversity of opinion.

The facts speak for themselves when we see where women place their votes in elections. Generally, they tend to vote less for Conservative parties. That is borne out in election after election because they want a party that stands for women's rights and women's equality.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I find it rather ingenuous that we keep talking about the early education and child care promise of the Liberals that never came to be.

Actually, the hon. member knows full well that there was an agreement with the province of Ontario on health care with a very major agreement on child care. There was an historic agreement on child care. It was on the front page of the Toronto Star. There is no point for the member to shake her head. It is true. She can go to the Internet herself. We wanted to start a national child care program and we could not get the provinces to agree to anything.

In fact, she will recall the premier of Ontario insisted on cherry picking. The mistake the Liberals made, and I will admit it, was to back off and allow that to happen. It should not have happened. The premier created what was called the early years program.

We went back again to negotiate with the provinces because the program has to be delivered by the provinces. We again negotiated and ended up with an agreement with all the provinces, except for New Brunswick which had a Conservative government and was not interested. There was $5 billion on the table and the program was in fact pretty much on its way.

The funding was there. This is what we are talking about. We are all so upset about the funds being cut by the government in February 2007, which is money that was already flowing to the provinces. The program was there, but the NDP chose to knock the government down and that is something for which it has to accept responsibility.

On pay equity of course, it could have been done sooner. I would like to have done it 10 years ago. It was not done, but as a response to the report of the standing committee we said that there would be legislation tabled in the fall. In the fall we were not in an election, but I can tell--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Parkdale—High Park.