Mr. Speaker, I am very, very, very happy about the motion that was debated this morning and will be debated during the course of the day. I will read this Liberal motion:
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.
This motion was introduced by my colleague from Beaches—East York.
This is an important motion. We have seen what has happened since the Conservative Party was elected to lead the Government of Canada. A number of my colleagues from the other parties have spoken today about everything the Conservative government has done since it was elected on January 23, 2006, such as eliminating programs that help women and slashing funding, if not doing away with it altogether.
It is interesting. If we look at Status of Women Canada, for example, we see that the government has slashed its funding and removed the word “equality” from its mandate.
It is interesting. We have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that guarantees gender equality. We used to have a status of women that had that as part of its mandate, but the Conservative government decided to cut it.
It is interesting that in so doing the Conservative government has also cut all and any funding to women's organizations that do advocacy work on behalf of women's rights here in Canada, women who are our mothers, our sisters, our daughters, our cousins, our spouses. For them, there is no more advocacy work, but at the same time, the Conservative government has no problem whatsoever in other policy areas to provide moneys to groups that advocate.
Let us look at the Conference of Defence Associations. The oldest advocacy group in Canada's defence community received a $500,000 multi-year grant in March 2007. I have no problem with that organization's advocating for guns, for more guns, for virtually no gun control in Canada. We live in a democracy and freedom of expression is guaranteed under our Constitution and our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, if the Conservative government says that women may not advocate and women's organizations may not advocate on behalf of gender equality and will not receive one penny of federal moneys because they advocate or for that portion of their activities which comprises advocacy, how is it that the Conservative government has no problem whatsoever providing funding to other advocacy groups that advocate the issues and positions that the Conservative government favours, such as no gun control and abolishing the firearms registry?
Before I forget, Mr. Speaker, I am splitting my time with the member for Mount Royal.
Now let us come to the NDP members who sit here snapping their straps about how holier than thou they are and who denounce the Conservative government for eliminating the child care agreements with the 10 provincial and three territorial governments, for eliminating the word “gender” from the mandate of the status of women, for cutting money to literacy groups, to women's groups, for cutting affordable housing programs, for cutting the program for the homeless.
It is interesting that the NDP members will sit here holier than thou and denounce the Conservative government for doing exactly what the Conservatives when they were the official opposition promised they would do when they became government. Yet in the words of Tom Flanagan, in his book at page 230, in talking about the Conservative Party campaign at the time that it was the official opposition:
No matter how well designed our campaign had been, it would have been hard for us to win if the NDP had not held up its end.
So the NDP is responsible in part for the fact that the Conservative Party is now the governing party in Canada and now has virtual free rein under a Prime Minister who has shown himself to be somewhat dictatorial, to cut child care, to cut funding to women's groups, to cut funding for affordable housing, to cut funding for our homeless, to cut funding on programs that work with our children and our youth.
The NDP sits there holier than thou, but according to the chief campaign organizer of the Conservative Party--