Debates of Nov. 1st, 2007

Sitting Resumed

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

(Motion agreed to)

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure that my colleague will agree with me when I say that equality for women cannot happen without pay equity and that without pay equity, women will not have economic equality either.

Lack of pay equity hurts women and their children and makes them more vulnerable to poverty. Statistics Canada says that women generally earn less than men. In 2003, they earned, on average, $24,000 before taxes, while men earned an average of $39,300.

I am sure that my colleague would agree that this situation is appalling and unacceptable in our society.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question. In Quebec, women working in the public sector fought for pay equity, and we won.

When I was first elected in 2004, I met with young female journalists working for Radio-Canada, the CBC, a Crown corporation, who have always sought pay equity with their male colleagues. It is now 2007, and they still do not have it.

Most single mothers work part-time, in their spare time, on weekends, etc. They have the right to equal pay for equal work.

The Bloc Québécois will continue to stand up for these women so that one day, they will win the fight for pay equity, just as we won it in Quebec.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, reference has been made to the report of the Standing Committee on Status of Women, “Improving the Economic Security of Women: Time to Act”, which came out in May or June.

Recommendation six had to do with language training. Specifically, the committee recommended that Citizenship and Immigration Canada, in consultation with provincial and territorial governments, expand eligibility to the language instruction for newcomers to Canada program to Canadian citizens who have immigrated to Canada and to successful refugee claimants.

She is a member of the Bloc Québécois. Would the member support that language training take place in French and English in the province of Quebec.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member. As we all know, the bill introduced by the leader of the Parti Québécois is causing quite a stir. The Government of Canada has recognized the Quebec nation. Now it has to walk the walk.

I support the bill's goal with respect to francization in Quebec because the rest of Canada requires some knowledge of English and French. If Canada wants to pride itself on its anglophone dominance, that is its choice.

Nevertheless, because Quebec is the only francophone province in anglophone North America, I will stand up for my language, my values and my culture.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her speech. She touched briefly on the issue of the guaranteed income supplement recipients and the inadequacy of those payments. My question is regarding a motion that I tabled and that we have not yet had the opportunity to debate. We will be debating it at a later date.

Does she acknowledge that calling on the government to significantly improve the guaranteed income supplement should be aimed primarily at singles? As we all know, it is much more expensive to live alone and it is mainly women, by a vast majority, who live below the poverty line this way.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague. Indeed, the guaranteed income supplement is something for which the Bloc Québécois has been fighting for the past 10 years. Many women live below the poverty line and cannot benefit from the guaranteed income supplement.

We are not asking that the guaranteed income supplement merely be readjusted. Rather, going back in time is what is really needed, to seek retroactive payments from the age of 65.

The government is amassing astronomical surpluses of $14 billion and, this year, if everything goes well, the surplus will be $20 billion.

Do you really think that the quarter cent or half cent to help these women, who are living in misery, will bother them? Not at all. I think the Conservative government needs to open its heart and its pocketbook to help these women living in poverty. These elderly women are like our library and hold our memories, and they are the ones who raised us. My mother always told me, “I raised my daughters for my sons-in-law and my sons for my daughters-in-law.” That is equality. These people deserve a little more dignity.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Nanaimo—Cowichan.

I am rising in the House today in response to the Liberal opposition motion that restates the absolute need for pay equity and calls on the government to develop a strategy to improve the economic security of women in Canada.

I confess that I find this motion coming from the Liberal Party to be hypocritical. The Liberals had 13 years of majority government to promote stable economic security for women. They had 13 years of majority government to implement progressive pay equity legislation and what did they do? They cut spending to Status of Women and failed to implement any of the 113 recommendations from the pay equity task force.

I want to start with the report that the Liberals failed to implement in 2004. Last year, the Status of Women committee specifically asked the Conservative government for a comprehensive response to this pay equity task force report. All the committee received from the Conservative government in response to the 570 page pay equity report was a one and a half page letter. The government's comprehensive response was less than two pages.

The Conservatives made it clear that they would not address the need for new pay equity legislation and that they were somehow satisfied with the current complaints based model. The government has no intention of addressing inequality between the sexes in this country. This has been proven by its reaction to the pay equity report. It has no intention of addressing inequality any more than its Liberal predecessors.

In the estimates released earlier this week, the Conservatives have again cut $5 million from Status of Women Canada. It is clear that their cuts to the department, their changes to the mandate and the elimination of the court challenges program is an assault on equality for women.

The Conservatives want to take Canadians back 25 years instead of moving Canada ahead.

The recent Speech from the Throne left women and the issues of equality out entirely. The economic statement delivered earlier this week provided lots of tax breaks for big business, big oil and big banks but the tax breaks aimed at ordinary Canadians will do absolutely nothing to improve the economic security of women in Canada. The tax breaks will not increase pay equity nor will they create child care spaces, affordable housing, enhance health care or build schools. Women and their families are being ignored again.

Now it is not very clear to me why the Conservative government refused to draft new legislation. In 1998, the now Prime Minister described our current pay equity laws as follows:

For taxpayers, however, it's a rip-off. And it has nothing to do with gender. Both men and women taxpayers will pay additional money to both men and women in the civil service. That's why the federal government should scrap its ridiculous pay equity law

He also pointed to specific flaws in the current legislation. He said:

Now "pay equity" has everything to do with pay and nothing to do with equity. It's based on the vague notion of "equal pay for work of equal value", which is not the same as equal pay for the same job.

Just to be clear, in 1998, the member, who is now our Prime Minister, did not support the complaints based pay equity legislation now in place. Now that he is in government, his party refuses to draft new legislation to remove the complaints based model. I am wondering if the Prime Minister has reversed his position or does he not believe in pay equity at all. It is my fear that the truth is the latter.

It has become clear that Canadian women will need to fight the government as they had to fight the last government. The fact remains that while Liberals were in power, women's rights, economic security and pay equity were stalled. They failed to act as an effective government and now they are failing to act as an effective opposition.

In March 1997, then secretary of state for the Status of Women, the member for Vancouver Centre, announced the elimination of program funding for women's organizations starting in 1998-99. From that point on, moneys from Status of Women Canada were delivered on a project basis within the priority areas set out each year by Status of Women Canada. This eliminated any long term or core funding for women's groups.

Overall, program funding for women's organizations was cut by more than 25% over the 1990s. The Liberal government also disbanded the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, a semi-independent agency that conducted research on a wide range of issues as they affect women.

The previous government then merged the body that provides funding to women's organizations, the women's programs, into Status of Women Canada and then eliminated the Canadian Labour Force Development Board which had given organizations of women, people of colour and people with disabilities a small voice in training policy. Women's equality seeking groups were dealt blow after blow.

Economic security for women hinges on key things, such as access to child care, access to affordable housing and the ability to earn a decent living.

Both Liberal and Conservative governments have failed to address the need for affordable housing in Canada. The first step toward economic security for any person is a safe place to live. Despite this, the Liberals ended the federal role in social housing in 1996. The Conservative government has ignored calls for spending in affordable housing, without regard for the fact that strong investment in housing would go a long way toward economic security for all Canadians.

Both Liberal and Conservative governments have also failed to create affordable child care in this country. The Conservative touted taxable money for child care has failed to create a single child care space in Canada.

In 1993, the Liberals promised to create 150,000 new child care spaces. However, after 12 years and three majority governments, they created none.

Today a woman still earns only 72.5¢ for every dollar that a man earns. Because pay inequity contributes to poverty, it has devastating health and social consequences for children. Pay inequity is also related to economic dependence which can affect a woman's ability to leave an abusive relationship. The choice between abuse and poverty is one no person should be forced to make.

It is also true that women bringing home lower paycheques also receive lower retirement incomes. Too often, senior women live hand to mouth until the end of their lives.

I will not stand here and just point out how both the Liberals and Conservatives have failed women in Canada because I could take up several speaking spots doing that. I would prefer to show fellow members of this House that positive action for women can be achieved.

The NDP has released a fairness for women action plan. Part of that plan includes making equal pay the law. Canada needs proactive pay equity legislation that would compel all employers to ensure that all employees receive equal pay for work of equal value. The NDP's plan to make Canada a leader in gender equality has the implementation of the pay equity task force and the introduction of proactive federal pay equity legislation, in particular, at its core.

Our plan is to increase access to employment insurance. Only one in three unemployed women collect employment insurance benefits. The NDP plan would ensure access to EI includes an overhaul to the legislation governing employment benefits. In the 39th Parliament, the NDP introduced eight private members' bill to improve access to this vital income support.

Our plan is to establish a $10 minimum wage. Two-thirds of minimum wage workers over the age of 15 are women. Many minimum wage-earning women are living well below the poverty line. Clearly, the federal government has a role to play in setting fair pay to ensure welfare of all hard-working Canadians and their families. The NDP has tabled a bill to reinstate the federal minimum wage, scrapped by the Liberals, at $10 an hour.

Our plan is to create a national child care program that would include passing the NDP's national child care act and establishing a network for high quality, licensed, not for profit child care spaces. The creation of new, reliable child care spaces so that women are not forced to choose between work and family.

Our plan is to improve parental and maternity benefits. One in every three mothers lacks access to maternity and parental benefits under employment insurance. Women are paying an economic penalty for having children. Our plan calls for a dramatic overhaul of maternity and parental leave programs.

We can achieve equality for women in Canada but what we lack is political will. Past Liberal governments stalled and failed to act. Conservative governments have ignored the problems and chosen not to promote equality and instead have given tax cuts to corporations.

We need a real commitment from this House to act and create the legislation needed to achieve equality for Canada's women, equality now.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her passion on this subject. She has been a good member on the Status of Women committee.

I would like to bring to her attention that sometimes rhetoric overshadows fact. The fact is that the Liberal's achievement for women was re-established. The Standing Committee on the Status of Women re-established an expert panel to provide advice on gender based budgeting.

We brought in gender based budgeting. We increased parental benefits, established centres for excellence and we put in money for national crime prevention and family violence. We did a lot of things, including the affordable child care strategy which was done in negotiations with the provinces and territories. We brought in the Kelowna accord to help aboriginals. We put in money for post-secondary education because that was what women told us to do. We put in $1.3 billion for immigrant women, the women who are vulnerable, the women who basically told us what was affecting their economic security.

Why did the NDP join hands with the Conservatives and break all the social programs, which were then gutted by the Conservative government. One billion dollars were taken from literacy and affordable housing. We had affordable housing. We had spaces. The Toronto Star, which is not regarded as a Liberal paper, showed that over 1,000 spaces--

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

The hon. member for London—Fanshawe.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, although I thank the hon. member for her question, unfortunately, there were some gaps in it. A little amnesia perhaps.

I would like to point out that the committee on the Status of Women Canada was re-established at the insistence of the NDP. On gender based budgeting, we heard from finance and other agencies that it still is not as effective as it needs to be.

I want to come back to two things, the first being child care and the so-called plan. The Liberals, who said that if they had three budget surpluses they would have a comprehensive child care program, had eight surpluses. The gobbledygook, the incredible concoction of what they said was a child care program, simply did not work.

I also want to point out that there is still no affordable housing. The Liberals cancelled it in 1996 and they brought in SCIPI which was a band-aid. Basically, those who depended on SCIPI had to come cap in hand year after year hoping that somehow they could get money for programming.

I want to tell members what SCIPI did in my riding. A place in my riding called My Sister's Place looks after homeless, abused women who are living on the edge. It came cap in hand year upon year to the Liberal government, and now to the Conservative government, asking that its programming be maintained because of the incredible need. At this point in time its funding has been cut in half. It has no idea how it will survive.

The legacy of the former government is that women do not know how they will survive. It is also now the legacy of the current government. When will it change?

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to ensure that the House is aware and clear on the facts. I also have a question that goes along with the facts.

A number of members have made mention, including the previous speaker, that we have not been investing federally as a government in child care spaces. If they disagree with the $100 per child, per family, under the age of six, that is fine.

However, I want to point out that Bill C-52 was passed in the House on June 22, 2007 and received royal assent. A section in the act, if they would care to read it, is called child care spaces. The finance minister is authorized to give $250 million to the provinces to create child care spaces in the provinces. It was set up. The provinces have the responsibility and the expertise for developing child care spaces.

The question should be: Where did the money go? It was included in the social transfer; $250 million annually.

My question is for the member. Can you remember what the Liberals put in their implementation bills--

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Order. The hon. member did not get to put his question because he asked the member instead of me.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is wonderful to have this chance to respond. I was looking at some figures, and I guess the old saying that figures do not lie or liars figure or something like that might pertain to this situation. The Conservatives talk about $1,200 for each child under six. That does not buy adequate child care. It does not create a single child care space.

Earlier the minister said they have created all kinds of spaces. I would like to know where and I would like to know how many. I am not hearing any strong numbers. What I do know about that $1,200 is that it is taxed back. The end result is that in the last fiscal year $340 million was taxed back from hard-working families on this child benefit. Annually, it is going to be $400 million. We could create a whole lot of national, affordable, decent child care for that kind of money.

The Conservatives did not do it. The Liberals did not do it. We are prepared to do it.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for London—Fanshawe for splitting her time with me and also for her tireless commitment and passion around working on behalf of women and children across this country.

I was honoured and privileged to serve as a New Democrat on the very first standing committee for women in 2005. I have to acknowledge as well the tireless work of the member for Winnipeg North and the member for Vancouver East, who worked hard to ensure that the committee was actually established by the House.

This is an interesting motion that has come before the House. The member for London—Fanshawe rightly pointed out the failure on the part of the Conservatives to work on behalf of equality for women, whether it is in regard to cuts to the Status of Women department, gutting the court challenges program, their failure to establish a national child care program, or the Conservative failure to actually move forward on social and affordable housing. I am not going to spend a whole lot of time talking about the very dim track record of the Conservatives, but I am going to talk about the Liberal track record.

When we are talking about the Liberal track record, most of us, when referring to economic security, would take that to mean access to affordable housing, access to a national child care program, good quality jobs, and good pensions, which would mean that senior women in particular could afford to live. We would take that to mean that an employment insurance program, that safety net, actually meets the needs of workers who lose their employment through no fault of their own.

Instead, we found under the Liberal watch a continuous cut to all of those programs that supported working and middle class families in this country. It was cut after cut after cut. Lest hon. members think this is simply New Democrat rhetoric, I want to talk about the fact that, domestically and internationally, the Liberals were consistently cited for their failure to protect the most vulnerable people in this country.

In the March 2007 report of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, there were many criticisms of the Canadian government, but I will talk about one. The report said that “the Committee remains concerned about serious acts of violence against Aboriginal women, who constitute a disproportionate number of victims of violent death” related to domestic violence.

The report goes on in its recommendations to talk about the fact that in the year 2000 it was recommended that “the State...strengthen and expand existing services, including shelters and counselling, for victims of gender-based violence, so as to ensure their accessibility”. That was under the Liberal watch.

We also have a preliminary report from the United Nations special rapporteur on adequate housing, Miloon Kothari, from a press conference on October 22. Again it is a report that is very critical of Canada's housing policy. It talks about inadequate housing. It talks about this being a “crisis” in Canada. Again we have an international person talking about the Liberal track record.

He talks about the fact that “Canada's successful social housing programme, which created more than half a million homes starting in 1973”, at the insistence of New Democrats, I might add, “no longer exists”. He says:

Canada has fallen behind most countries in the [OECD] in its level of investment in affordable housing. Canada has one of the smallest social housing sectors among developed countries.

Those were cuts under the Liberal watch.

Today, we truly do have a national crisis in housing. Thousands of people across this country are homeless. In a survey that was done two years ago in my riding, 50% of the homeless in the city of Nanaimo were women and children. We had a Liberal government that in the past cut the very supports out from under those most in need.

In case the Conservatives think they are off the hook, they are also mentioned in the report. We have a Conservative government that is talking about a “shift in housing policy to provide support for home ownership, mainly through the tax system, while eroding support for social and rental housing”.

Many of the most vulnerable will never have a chance to own a home in this country. That is why we need to invest in social and affordable housing.

What about unemployment insurance under the Liberal watch? By the time the Liberals finished reforming the then unemployment insurance system, now called employment insurance, we had the situation where now only about four out of every 10 male unemployed workers are collecting EI benefits at any given time. This is down from 80% in 1990. Only one in three unemployed women is collecting benefits at any given time. This is down from 70% in 1990.

I am sure that somebody will get up and say that is because the economy is so much better, but the reality of these numbers is that these people are paying into the system, and when they apply for employment insurance, they are told by the government, today the Conservatives, yesterday the Liberals, that they do not qualify despite the fact that they are paying into the system.

Under the current system the basic benefit paid is 55% of insured earnings while the level of insured earnings is averaged over 26 weeks to a maximum of $423. That was a while ago, but under the Liberal watch, it fell from 66% in the 1970s to 55%.

With respect to first nations, the Liberals instituted a 2% cap in funding growth to first nations in 1996. This cap applied to all core programs and services, such as education, child and family services, income assistance, Indian governance support, housing, capital and infrastructure, and regulatory services programs. Again, that was under the Liberal watch.

As for pay equity, a report was commissioned by the Liberals in 2001. Three years later in 2004, the pay equity task force tabled its final report called “Pay Equity: a New Approach to a Fundamental Human Right”, which contained over 100 recommendations. Unfortunately I do not have time to read them all, although I would be very pleased to do that.

The very first task force recommendation was that “Parliament enact new stand-alone, proactive pay equity legislation in order that Canada can more effectively meet its international obligations and domestic commitments, and that such legislation be characterized as human rights legislation”.

The Status of Women committee at that time, which I was very pleased to sit on, did a report to the government outlining the circumstances of the pay equity report. The committee made a recommendation to the government. It recommended that “the Departments of Justice and Human Resources and Skills Development draft and table legislation based on the recommendations of the Pay Equity Task Force by 31 October 2005 and that the legislation be referred to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women”.

As for the Liberal response, by now it should be no surprise. It was that they were going to have another study. They were going to consult. So after the Liberals had been confronted with report after report on what needed to be done to ensure economic security for women in Canada, after they commissioned a report and spent untold thousands of dollars on that report, which was well worth it, they wanted to spend more time and more money to commission another report.

One of the women who came before the Status of Women committee talked about her dilapidated office, because of course the Liberals cut core program funding to women's organizations. She had a broken table in her office. The leg was missing. To shore up her table, she used stacks of reports about inadequate housing, inadequate wages and inadequate pension income. What she asked the committee to do was act on some of the recommendations in those stacks of reports that were holding up the table.

The Liberals had 13 years of majority and minority government to move forward on some of the recommendations in the countless reports they had done with women's groups across this country. Instead of acting on the recommendations, they consulted more and asked for more reports. Unfortunately, the Conservatives are continuing in that same vein.

In conclusion, I want to talk about the convention on the elimination of discrimination against women. Again it cites the Liberal track record and says that the Liberals could not even be bothered to report on that convention in 2002 for the period covering 1994 to 1998. I think that is a good way to end. The Liberals could not even fulfill an international commitment to report in a timely fashion on issues that were of the greatest importance to women, whether it was violence against women, adequate shelter, or access to transition houses. The list is endless. I think it is a very sad comment on today's women's rights.

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

Mr. Speaker, it must be nice to be able to stand in the House and not take responsibility for any of one's actions and to provide information that is totally not on.

Let me start with the child care program. It is nice to stand and say there was no child care program, but if there was none, how is it that the Conservatives were able to cut one? One cannot cut something that is not there for starters. There was $5 billion on the table. The money had already flowed to the provinces. That is why there were 11,000 spaces lost in Ontario and others in Toronto.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

It is in the red book.

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

Never mind the red book. Mr. Speaker, we met the commitment. There was $2 billion in the year 2000. The fact that the provinces and Mr. Harris in Ontario refused to use that money for child care had nothing to do with us. In the year 2000 there was $2 billion spent on children in this country, plus $5 billion going up to $10 billion for a national child care program.

The NDP chose to have an election instead of establishing a child care program across this country. It chose to have an election instead of having affordable housing through a 10 year housing strategy. It chose to have an election and get more seats, and those seats cost Canadians the child care program.

The hon. member should take responsibility for her own actions.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take responsibility for my own actions.

I am grateful the hon. member thinks that 19 New Democrats were able to overthrow the Liberal government, but it was actually the voters of Canada who decided they had had enough of the Liberal lack of movement on very important issues.

When we talk about child care specifically, I want to remind the member that the Liberals had an opportunity to enshrine child care in legislation and they failed to do that. In those agreements with the provincial governments across this country, they failed to enshrine some accountability measures, In provinces like mine, no child care spaces were created in British Columbia because the Liberals failed to make sure that the province of B.C. had incremental funds. What the province did under the Liberals in B.C. was it substituted federal money for provincial money so that there was no net gain. That was a failure on the part of the federal Liberals to make sure that child care spaces were actually going to be created in this country.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I share my colleague's absolute frustration with the Liberal record over 13 years. It clearly was a mess.

In election after election the old Liberal government promised that it would deliver a national child care program. It never happened. The Liberals made so many promises.

The Liberal member who just asked a question actually referred to the red book and wanted to avoid any responsibility for it. In fact, that red book is a legacy to the broken promises of the Liberal Party.

I also want to remind the member that it was actually this government that increased funding to women's programs in Canada. First, we did an efficiency review. We made sure that the money that was supposed to go to women was not going to high paid lobbyists, high paid lawyers, high paid consultants, but that it was going to the front line where women really needed the funds. That is where the money was redirected. On top of that, our government increased that funding by 42%, some $20 million over two years in budget 2007.

I would ask the member to comment on why she cannot support increasing funding for women's programs as we did in budget 2007.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Abbotsford for his question. However, I need to first point out to the member that under the Conservative watch we have seen very important women's organizations in this country having to close their doors.

The National Association of Women and the Law has done yeoman's work over the years in making sure that important matters confronting women across the country are studied and raised. It has had some influence over policy and legislation that was brought forward. Organizations like that have been forced to close their doors.

There are women's resource centres in my own riding that are having to do things like sell coffee in order to keep their doors open. These resource centres are very important avenues for women to find out information.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

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--

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order. I am sorry for interrupting the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.

There seems to be some interest in her comments. I would just urge members to wait until the questions and comments portion. If they have any questions or any comments to make about her speech, they will have that opportunity.