Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Victoria.
I start by thanking the member for London—Fanshawe for bringing this very important motion before the House. However, it is with some sadness that I am speaking about this motion.
I was part of the membership on the very first parliamentary Standing Committee on the Status of Women in 2004. During that period of time, we heard from women from coast to coast to coast on a variety of issues, including core funding for women's programs. They told us they were tired of being studied, they were tired of coming before Parliament cap in hand, asking for core funding for their organizations. Cutting core funding does not lie at the feet of the new Conservative government. The Conservative government is continuing on with the program that was started by the Liberals. In 2004 women were asking the then Liberal government to reverse its agenda on cutting core funding for women's programs.
In 2004-05 we also heard from women's organizations about things like the convention to eliminate discrimination against women. We heard about the government of the day being cited for its failure to support legal aid programs for women, for its failure to support aboriginal women in terms of access to a variety of programs and services and for its failure to provide adequate housing for women.
It is with sadness that I see this motion before us because it could have been dealt with in the previous Parliament. It asks for an increase in funding by 25% to the women's program at Status of Women Canada. It asks for a mix of core funding and project funding. The recommendations also talked about the position of Status of Women Canada as a leader in the application of the code of good practise on funding. They also state that Status of Women Canada should act now to enter into funding agreements for a minimum of three years. Why is this important for women's organizations?
There are a number of women's organizations in my riding, but two come prominently to mind. One is Women Against Violence Against Women, which is located in the Cowichan Valley, and the other is Women's Resource Centre in Nanaimo. Both of these organizations have to spend a significant amount of their time looking for funding. The executive directors and board members spend a lot of time fundraising and going to private donors. In the meantime, they are unable to fulfill their organization's mandate even though they attempt to do a good job. Time and energy should be put into delivering their mandates rather than constantly looking for funds. This also causes a great deal of instability within these organizations. The staff is committed to the issues facing women both in the community of Nanaimo—Cowichan and across this country. These women are often underpaid and work far more hours than is reasonable to get the job done.
We would really improve the lot of women in their communities if women's organizations had core stable funding to provide the necessary services.
Who sits at the table and who gets to make a decision is important. All parliamentarians are hard-working individuals, but women are not represented here in the numbers they should be. I looked at some research put forward in November 2006 by the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women. It indicated that women in Canada made up 50.4% of the population, but only 20.8% of the seats in the House of Commons. According to the United Nations, Canada ranks 30th in the world in terms of women representation in Parliament. We fall behind Sweden, Norway, Rwanda, Trinidad and Tobago, among other countries. The current governing party in the House of Commons fielded the fewest women candidates in the general election of 2006, with only 10% of its candidates being women.
These numbers have not budged in quite some time. We have been stuck around the 20% range for at least 10 years. One of the ways we can encourage women's participation in a parliamentary process is to ensure there is funding at the local level.
Before I was elected, I was pleased to participate in a project sponsored by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. It looked at barriers to women in municipal politics. That was just not elected women, but in the whole process. Part of the report stated that there were many systemic barriers to women's participation, one barrier being around education and awareness. This is a role that women's organizations can play. One of the vital functions to which core funding can contribute is in education and awareness so women know what a political process looks like, so they understand how to get involved in that process and what it means to run for a variety of elected positions, school board, municipal and federal.
We would make far better decisions and more balanced decisions in the House if 50% of the representation in the House were women.
I heard some talk about how much women have achieved. Certainly they have achieved much over the last 25 or 30 years, but there is a significant gap. People talked about the fact that women were attending post-secondary institutions in increasing numbers and becoming professionally accredited in a number of areas. However, the economic reality is this, and I quote from the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, the CRIAW Fact Sheet report. It states:
At every level of education, women in Canada earn less on average than men. For example, in 2003, women who are high school graduates earned 71.0% of what male high school graduates earned for full-time, full-year work.
The report goes on further about the ratios and states that in terms of the ratio of male to female earned income, the wage gap, Canada ranks 38th in the world behind countries like Cambodia, Kenya and the Czech Republic among others.
I spoke earlier about programs like employment insurance. Women have lost ground under programs like employment insurance. Women have been unable to qualify, for example, for maternity and paternity the way they used to under the old system.
On economic equality, in May 2004 the federal task force on pay equity released its comprehensive report which addressed the criticisms of current pay equity legislation. In the current context, on September 18, 2006, the federal government responded no, to the recommendations of a multi-year federal task force on pay equity as part of its response to the all party House of Commons standing committee.
On September 18, 2006, it responded no to the EI maternity-parental leave recommendations of the all party House of Commons standing committee.
We can start to see this theme emerge. We are undermining women's equality in this country. The current government took all mention of equality out of the terms and conditions of women's programs and changed the rules so women's organizations could no longer use federal funds to advocate for women's equality, including pressing for changes that will recognize the value and contribution women make in the paid workplace and in the home.
According to the 1984 Royal Commission on Equality in Employment, child care is the ramp that provides equal access to the workforce for mothers. Twenty-two years later that ramp has yet to be built.
I know a number of other members have talked about child care, so I will not talk about it for the moment, but I want to talk about legal aid. I come from British Columbia where legal aid has been slashed by the provincial government, but it was also partly in response to what has happened at the federal government level.
The CRIAW Fact Sheet talks about the fact that not everyone has equal access to the law. In the early 1990s the federal government capped its contributions to the provinces for legal aid and subsequently cut it significantly in the mid-1990s. This filtered down to the provinces, with cutbacks and restrictions about who would use legal aid and for what.
We are now faced with a situation where women do not have income equality. They do not have adequate access to child care, to housing and to legal aid.
We have this continuing step back from a women's equality agenda. Here we are in 2007. It is time for women to be able to take their rightful place at all levels in our country. They should have equal access in the paid workforce and in the elected processes.
I urge members of the House to support the motion on core funding. This will get to the very heart of allowing women to speak up and advocate for what should be rightfully theirs.