Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to say that I will share my time with the member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges.
I am very pleased to rise today in this House to talk about my views on this budget, views that are shared by the women we represent, aboriginal women, senior women, single mothers, women who are still in school and veterans' widows. In short, we feel that the budget is certainly not favourable, and this is definitely one of the reasons we will vote against it.
Last week, the UN held its 53rd session on the status of women. The minister did not attend, but the coordinator of Status of Women Canada, Clare Beckton, was there. What a surprise it was for the representatives of the social groups at that session to hear Ms. Beckton's statements, in which she simply repeated that Canada would develop an action plan, as set out in the budget, and that Canada's position was very low compared to some European countries, such as the United Kingdom.
This meeting was also attended by Michèle Asselin, of the Fédération des femmes du Québec, Louise Riendeau, of the Quebec association of women's shelters and transition houses, and representatives of many other organizations such as the CSN, FIQ and FTQ. They roundly condemned the fact that, although the budget included an action plan, there was almost no point in mentioning it because an action plan had already been adopted some years ago, in 1995, namely the Beijing platform for action. This is the action plan that we should be implementing to ensure that women are afforded equality and equity.
This year, the rhetoric was to have been transformed into action by implementing the Beijing platform for action. I would also like to point out that the report submitted to the Status of Women Canada committee in 2006 by the expert panel of which Ms. Langevin of Laval University was a member, pinpointed the issues and the means of addressing the challenges.
Therefore, we really wonder why the budget mentions a plan, when there are no specific measures geared to women to improve their status, pay equity and so forth. Serious questions are being raised. Are they just trying to look good? In the throne speech, the word woman appeared only once. This year, we have a brief paragraph of six lines that talks about women without providing the means to meet the needs identified by a number of groups.
Prebudget consultations were held and groups told the government exactly what they wanted to see in the budget to improve their condition. It is fairly surprising to note that nothing came of all these consultations. We are left wondering. Is it worthwhile having these consultations? Does the government really want to know what women want to see in budgets or is it all just window-dressing?
Personally, I tend to believe the latter. I have the impression that it is just window-dressing. In fact, the budget before us takes a step backwards. A gender-based analysis should have been carried out before the budget. Unfortunately, there is no sign of it.
As Ms. Beckton explained it to us, gender-based analysis (GBA) is supposed to be carried out within the various departments and services before approaching the Treasury Board or the Privy Council. If the gender-based analysis had been done properly, the GBA champions in the various departments would have been able to point out the contradictions in the measures proposed.
I am convinced that these people, who do nothing but this kind of work, would have informed the ministers concerned of the different measures proposed and they would have persuaded them to make changes to those measures so that they truly respond to women’s needs and whatever had been found using gender-based analysis. Unfortunately, we see those concerns were not taken into consideration in the measures—and there are not many—that appear in this budget now before us.
Canada has been criticized several times in recent years by the United Nations and by CEDAW, the UN Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Moreover, Canada is still under investigation this year and CEDAW has criticized Canada many times. There is also ICESCR, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which has criticized Canada on several issues, including employment insurance, the absence of day care in Canada and aboriginal women. I say “absence of day care in Canada” because everyone in this House certainly knows that day care services are well provided in Quebec. Quebec has provided day care services and ensured that women in Quebec have proper and effective day care services and that their children are well protected and receive an education that promotes their development until they are able to go to school.
I think that is a real shame because it was a wonderful opportunity for the government to demonstrate that it really is concerned about the status of women. We saw that with older women who are veterans' widows. I have said often enough that my own mother is a veteran’s widow. She took care of my father for 40 years. Today, she needs help. With this new program that the government has introduced, there is no way for her to receive help, even though she has been a widow for 20 years and she looked after my father for 40 years. It is very clear that my mother is much older than she was in those days. Now, she is the one who needs help.
Yet, the government is not interested in providing help to these widows whose husbands spent six years at the front. We see people now returning from the war in Afghanistan after spending six months at the front and those people are suffering from post-traumatic syndrome and all kinds of conditions. There is help for them.
When my father went to war, from 1939 to 1945, he spent six years on the front lines. He took part in all the Mediterranean campaigns, and yet, when he came back, there were no services to help him deal with post-traumatic shock. The only way he could get through the post-traumatic shock was by being with his family, his wife, the woman who helped him his entire life. Today, those very people are being denied assistance, those people who acted in a very exceptional way to support our soldiers returning from the second world war after experiencing so much trauma.
They are not the only people who were abandoned by this budget. Indeed, aboriginal women were once again overlooked. Once again, the government decided to give small amounts of money to small organizations and groups, instead of giving significant amounts of money in order to ensure that aboriginal women living in first nations communities can benefit from adequate services to meet their needs.
We saw that shelters for aboriginal women receive a subsidy of only $90,000 a year, while women's shelters in Quebec receive a subsidy of $300,000 a year. Yet the needs are quite different. For aboriginal women, the shelters are in the community and are known to everyone. The challenges are therefore even greater. They need even more support and greater security. They must be given adequate services to get out of their difficult situations.
I am being signalled that I have only one minute left and I will soon be cut off. Yet I have so much more to say. I will come back to this topic, there is no doubt.