Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to thank the member for Vancouver Centre for all the work she did as minister responsible.
In response to the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan, I would like to inform her that every year during the budget, one of the most important analyses of the budget that we received was from the department when the member for Vancouver Centre was the minister. There was a conference call with all the women's groups around the country which resulted in a serious impact analysis of what the budget would and could do for women.
There is no question that we need to go further. Former minister Frulla appointed a very important committee to look at how we would do accountability on the gender issues across government, and that was an important report.
I think the debate today concerns whether we go forward or go back. The basic premise of good management is that if it is measured it gets noticed and if it gets noticed it gets done. However, unless we have good programs on the ground and government departments that work with one another to actually see how women are faring in this country we will not get it right.
I stand here today thinking about Saturday morning and having breakfast with Doris Anderson. Doris Anderson, to me, is a hero who, when she turned 80, reminded us all of when women needed somebody to co-sign a cheque, of when women could not get a mortgage and that we have come a long way.
What we are really worried about today, what people like Doris Anderson, Monique Bégin and even Flora MacDonald are seriously worried about is whether we are going to turn back the clock on the gains we have made.
Today we are being reminded that government reports to Parliament, not the other way around, and that when government reports to Parliament it means that when Parliament passes motions on things like child care, the Kelowna accord, the way in which aboriginal and immigrant women are living and the situations in which they find themselves, we must do better.
It is because of spectacular organizations that the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan mentioned, such as FAFIA and the National Association of Women and the Law, the kinds of organizations that have been funded by Status of Women Canada, that we have been able to be accountable, but it is also our international obligations with CEDAW and the United Nations' responsibilities that we as a country have signed onto and we as a country must fulfill.
Without the kind of funding that Status of Women Canada has been able to give and the kinds of organizations actually on the ground, it is impossible to get it right. It is instructive to look back at the importance that funding these women's groups have brought us. This funding is why women's equality still matters.
However, it is the government of the day that seems to have taken the word equality out of every aspect, every document and every website. It does not like the word equality and it is continuing to listen to organizations like REAL Women that has on its website “Women's rights but not at the expense of human rights”, whatever on earth that means, when we know from the great people like Irwin Cotler and Stephen Lewis that women's rights are human rights. If we cannot get women's rights correct and there is no real equality then we should be ashamed as a country that is supposed to be setting an example for the world.
In the panel report that I mentioned, entitled “Equality for Women: Beyond the Illusion”, released in July 2006, it reiterates the reality of the fact of how much more work we can do. I will quote from it as I think it is an extraordinary synopsis of where we are. The report states:
--many people think that we have truly achieved equality for women in Canada. Much as we would like it to be so, it is simply not the case. In 2005, only one in five members of Parliament is a woman. The same holds true in general across the legislatures of the provinces and territories. Girls are the victims of more than four out of five cases of sexual assault on minors. Four out of five one parent-families are headed by women. The employment income gap between male and female university graduates who work full time has widened. Women working full time still earn only 71 cents for every dollar that men make. Women do the large majority of the unpaid work in Canada. ...The most recent figures show that 38 per cent of Aboriginal women live in low income situations. So, too, do 35 per cent of lone mothers and 27 per cent of immigrant women. Immigrant women working full time earn 58 cents for every dollar earned by Canadian born men--
We are not there yet and it is so important when we look at the things that we fought for and won. It was because of things like the commission on the Status of Women and then the organizations that ended up being funded when we first began the women's programs in the Canadian government.
From maternity benefits to economic justice for wives to protect their matrimonial homes, the custody and access changes, the abolition of immunity for husbands raping their wives, criminalizing wife assault, amendments to the Indian Act, human rights statutes to prohibit sexual harassment and discrimination based on pregnancy and sexual orientation, the protection of therapeutic and confidential files of sexual assault survivors and the impact the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act has on the women, which is being studied by the minister.
It is important for us to understand, however, as that important report said, that we have way more to do in terms of the real poverty among women in general and in vulnerable groups of women in particular. It is also because of the double or triple discrimination of certain groups of women, particularly women of colour and aboriginal women, that we know we must continue to work hard.
We are looking at legal aid. We are looking at the idea of working with aboriginal women to find solutions to things affecting them. We are looking at working with immigrant women so they can be included in the solutions to problems, which they understand best, in their neighbourhoods. We are also looking at women's non-standard jobs, coherent and consistent measures dealing with human rights over mechanisms of partnership, affordable child care that we have heard so much about this afternoon in terms of how there cannot be equality until women have real choice as to whether they actually go to work, go back to school and know that their children have quality child care.
This is so sad when we think of the excellent report that was done by the standing committee. This is again about a government that refuses to listen to Parliament and refuses to listen to the work of committees. When we think of the 10 important recommendations in the report, as cited in the motion today, we have so much farther to go.
It is time for the women of Canada to be reminded of the progress we have made and to be reminded that if people deny that there needs to be this kind of work in terms of real equality, if people refuse to use the word equality, then they cannot move forward.
The cuts in funding to the Status of Women Canada saddens me but the unbelievable reality that certain groups in certain Conservative ridings have been quietly approached to find out if they need money for their shelter because they happen to be in a Conservative riding is also saddening. The department should be tackling this problem and assigning funds in a peer based and evidence based way with women and community groups to determine where the programs should go.
This cannot be a political football. It must be evidence based. We have tremendous experience in Status of Women Canada for the kind of evidence and programs that it has funded up until now. This is a terrible disgrace to our country internationally and we should be moving forward, not back.