Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we will celebrate Equality Day. Equality Day marks the coming into force of the equality provisions in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on April 17, 1985.
Thousands of women, including NDP MPs Pauline Jewett and Margaret Mitchell, fought for women's inclusion in the charter.
The equality provision, section 15, sets out four kinds of protection: equality before and under the law, and equal benefit and protection of the law, on seven grounds, including sex.
While women in Canada may have achieved equality in law, they still have not achieved equality in practice. After 23 years, women deserve better.
The Conservative government is irreversibly changing the course of women's equality in Canada. The NDP has put forward a Fairness for Women Action Plan. I would ask the government to adopt these recommendations so that women will achieve equality once and for all.