Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join this very spirited debate today. I want to read for the benefit of Canadians watching at home and the constituents of York West the motion that we are dealing with today. It reads:
That, taking into account the reports produced by the Standing Committee on Status of Women on the need for pay equity and the lack of economic security for women, the House call upon the government to develop a strategy to improve the economic security of all women in Canada and present this strategy to the House by February 1, 2008.
That does not sound like a huge job for the government to do.
Last year I had the opportunity to chair the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. We heard from Canadians all across the country who reminded us time and time again that the issue of pay equity is crucial for the economic security of women in Canada. Unfortunately, women are still earning only 71¢ for every dollar that men earn.
Regardless of their educational achievements, women continue to have earnings well below those of men, for many reasons. This means a heightened risk of poverty for children and for women in their retirement years. In recent statistics, 47% of single parent families were poor and more than one-third of single women over 65 continue to live in poverty. This last is an issue that I continue to hear about in my constituency, as I am sure many members do. I continue to hear from women who are really struggling to live on a very minimal pension.
The current Prime Minister once said, as my colleague alluded to, that pay equity is a “rip-off”. Clearly, the Conservative government is not providing the leadership to help women improve their economic status. The Prime Minister clearly does not understand and does not respect pay equity when he can say it is a rip-off.
Sadly, that is clearly all we are going to be able to expect from the Conservatives. The Conservative minority government has yet to explain to the women of this country how Status of Women Canada will be able to continue to fulfill its mandate in light of its $5 million cut, almost half of its operating budget.
Liberal governments are known for their commitment to women's equality and to defending women's rights. Our former Liberal government did exactly that and took action in various areas, such as, in the year 2000, extending parental benefits for a full year, something many people are thoroughly enjoying. This is a legacy for Canadian families that we on this side of the House are very proud of.
In 2004 the Liberal government also established the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, which was an important move forward for women in Canada.
In October 2005 we created an expert panel to provide advice and options to strengthen accountability mechanisms to advance gender based analysis and gender equality issues.
Other Liberal achievements that I am very proud to have been part of include creating the Centres of Excellence for Women's Health and the Institute of Gender and Health to work on health policies and issues that are unique to women.
We also committed $32 million every year to national crime prevention initiatives. We know that women continue to be the victims of a lot of the crime in our country and that $32 million in crime prevention initiatives is helping many women to feel safer.
The Liberals provided another $7 million to the family violence initiative to try to deal with issues of domestic violence.
Also, to help make post-secondary education more affordable for lower income and middle income Canadians, we committed over $2 billion over five years to improve student financial assistance.
For our valued seniors, Liberal budget 2005 ensured that senior women would benefit from a $2.7 billion increase over two years to the guaranteed income supplement. Seniors are and want to remain active members of our society. Our budget increased support for the hugely successful new horizons program, which promotes voluntary sector activities and supports seniors. Annual funding would have increased to $25 million by 2007-08.
But the Conservatives care very little about seniors. We just need to look at what they did a year ago. Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the Conservative government's decision to levy a 31% tax on income trusts.
Many of those Canadian investors included huge numbers of retired seniors who actually invested their savings in the income trust market as a result of the fact that the Prime Minister himself explicitly promised over and over not to tax them. He even wrote it directly into his election platform, which turned out to be completely false.
Ten months after being elected, the Prime Minister broke his promise, resulting in the loss of $25 billion of investors' money in a single day. The majority of these people were not slick, savvy investors, but ordinary citizens who relied on their income trust dividends for their day to day necessities and to supplement their retirement income.
I had the opportunity to meet some of these Canadians yesterday at a rally on Parliament Hill. My Liberal colleagues and I heard how these people felt betrayed by the Prime Minister and the Conservative government. It was tragic to hear their stories of such dramatic losses of their savings and what they were counting on for their futures.
Speaking of dramatic losses, another loss that we have clearly experienced is the loss of early learning and child care agreements that the Liberal government had negotiated. It was a disastrous loss for Canadians, for women and for our country. These early learning and child care opportunities would have been of huge benefit to working families and in helping to prepare our children for the future.
What happened to those agreements that took so many years to put together? The NDP, led by the member for Toronto—Danforth, plunged the country into an unnecessary election, which resulted in child care through the mailbox, a system of a taxable allowance to parents.
The NDP's crackerjack of a leader then stood by while the Conservatives proceeded to undo all the good work, other than a few Liberal programs that they have re-announced. I am sure the fourth party leader, when he goes to bed at night, cannot be very proud of that.
I will go back to the excellent motion that my colleague has tabled today. Pay inequity is a critical issue for women in this country. Pay inequity clearly hurts women and our children. It makes women and children more vulnerable to struggling on very low incomes. In Canada, more women than men live in such difficult situations and the majority of single parent households are headed by a woman living on a low income. We have over one million children who continue to be poor.
Almost half of single, widowed or divorced women over 65 live below appropriate income levels, and 51% of lone parent families headed by women are living on very low incomes. Economic security is at the heart of women's equality. Women continue to be economically disadvantaged and it is time for action.
We call on the government to develop a strategy to improve the economic security of all women in Canada and to present the strategy to the House by February 1, 2008. We must all work together to ensure a brighter future for our children and grandchildren.