Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise and speak here today during this official opposition day.
As we all know, for eight years, I sat on the town council for Ascot, where I was the only woman in that still male-dominated world of politics.
I am not sharing this experience in order to brag or to denigrate the field in which we work. I am relating it because I believe it is important to break down the barriers that, unfortunately, still hinder women's access to good jobs. We must try to change the macho culture and mentality that have dominated for too long in Quebec and Canada.
To allow women access to good jobs, greater investments must be made in meeting basic needs, as well as on the human side.
I would like to use my time here today to highlight a wonderful initiative that has been taken in my riding.
Last year, the Tools for Life project was launched to help young women enter the job market. The goal of the project was to help young women who had not finished high school, who had children, and who, in many cases, were single mothers. These women were, understandably, discouraged.
Thanks to Tools for Life, these young women learned to prepare budgets, to cook and to put together a resumé. Most importantly, they learned to shoulder their responsibilities and to believe in themselves. These young women quickly realized that people who believe in themselves can accomplish a lot.
I found the first Tools for Life project in Stanstead so inspiring and promising that I was delighted to be the honorary sponsor for these young women. That was a good move. Seven of the nine women who signed up for the program earned their diplomas, but most importantly, they finished the program with a renewed sense of pride. These young women are now working, and they have become part of their communities.
The project was such a success that it is now under way elsewhere in my riding in the municipality of Bury. Projects like this one enable women to escape the vicious cycle of financial insecurity.
Today's opposition motion supports that because it asks the government to develop a strategy to improve the economic security of all women in Quebec and Canada.
Despite progress toward equality, women are still at a disadvantage in the nations of Quebec and Canada, and elsewhere in the world. The federal government's failure to act on this issue continually reminds us of this.
Take, for example, the employment insurance reforms that neither the Liberal nor the Conservative governments wanted to implement. Or the child care system or the older women who are not receiving their guaranteed income supplement. Or the fact that here in Ottawa, in the federal public service, pay equity is still not a reality.
The time to act is now, but the government is still not doing anything. Instead of helping women, the federal government has been making their lives harder, and things have gotten worse under the Conservatives.
Despite growing surpluses, the government is still slashing its investments in people.
I am always astonished when I hear the Conservative ministers announce cuts to literacy, official languages, social programs or status of women, claiming that it is important to make budgetary choices, while the Minister of Finance announces an unexpected $14 billion surplus or cuts to taxes and the GST, as he did earlier this week.
I want to remind the government that disadvantaged women pay little or no income tax already. I also want to remind the government that these women's main expenses are rent and groceries, two areas where the GST does not apply.
This is nothing new, though. The Conservatives have always been far more inclined to help their friends in the oil industry than the people who need help the most.
What makes me even sadder are cases like that of the National Association of Women and the Law, which I learned last month had closed because of Conservative cuts, after 33 years of defending women's rights.
We had known since last October that the new women's program eligibility criteria set by the former minister responsible for the status of women would have an impact on organizations like this one, but we did not realize just how dramatic that impact would be.
At the time, the minister told us that only groups that aimed to improve women's economic, social and cultural status would be funded. Groups that did research on the status of women and worked to have legislation amended were therefore shut out.
The former minister said at the time that the idea was to fund “real” women. I believe she was making a thinly veiled allusion to REAL Women, an ultra-conservative organization founded in the U.S. that advocates a return to traditional values.
The change of ministers did not really improve matters. The new minister said that the National Association of Women and the Law had only itself to blame. I quote:
The Government of Canada is not responsible for the office closing. The office closed because the association was unable to raise enough money to fund its activities.
Clearly the minister does not understand her role very well. She is supposed to be the voice of women in cabinet, not the voice of the Conservative cabinet—a conservative voice in every sense—for women. Perhaps she should re-read the mission statement for Status of Women Canada. On the Web site, it says that Status of Women Canada is the federal government agency which promotes gender equality, and the full participation of women in the economic, social, cultural and political life of the country.
Do the minister's comments really come as any surprise, when her government has been trying for a year now to silence women's groups that stand up for equality? Not at all.
In my eyes, it is clear that gender equality, which was far from becoming a reality under the Liberals, has been regressing since the Conservatives arrived. For the Conservatives, the specificity of women's lives is not even worth talking about.
It therefore comes as no surprise that in their first election platform, the word “women” came up only twice: once in the context of increasing sentences for offenders and another time in talking about female immigrants who settle in Canada. That is quite the vision for women, who represent 52% of the population.
I am focusing on the Conservatives because it is time for them to take action. However, things were not much better under the previous government. In the last Parliament, I was a member of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. One after another, the witnesses who appeared before us did not come to tell us that everything was just fine, quite the opposite. They came asking for more help from the government.
It makes me laugh today to see the official opposition calling for a strategy to improve the economic security of all women and then to add a deadline. I am in favour of such a strategy, but I find it somewhat ironic that this motion was moved by a party that formed the government for 13 years and never invested significantly into improving the economic situation of women. Perhaps they have become more progressive since becoming the opposition.
Like all my colleagues in the Bloc, I am surprised by the Liberals' attitude today. We are also condemning the Conservatives' actions vis-à-vis the status of women. Despite the progress that has been made in the past 50 years, women in Quebec and Canada still need us to care about them. A strategy to improve the economic security of all women in Quebec and Canada is welcome. This strategy should nonetheless respect Quebec's achievements when it comes to status of women.