Madam Speaker, here are some key statistics on maternal health. It is very important.
Every year, over 500,000 women die from pregnancy-related complications, and 9 million children die before the age of 5.
According to the World Health Organization, the first step for reducing the maternal death rate is to ensure that women have access to family planning and safe abortion.
Modern contraceptive options help fight the spread of HIV/AIDS, by allowing HIV-positive women to plan the timing of their pregnancies, so that they can recover from childbirth, and by providing access to health care in order to prevent transmitting the virus to their children.
Maternal mortality tends to be inversely proportional to women’s status in countries with similar levels of economic development.
We want the maternal health initiative to include a full range of family planning options. The government must make a firm commitment in terms of the funding, content and duration of the project.
The Prime Minister has come in late to the debate. Other countries have been interested in maternal health for years and have taken the lead in terms of funding—the facts are clear—while the Prime Minister is still playing catch-up.
The Conservatives have very little credibility when it comes to women's issues in developing countries. After all, their government was the one that banished the terms gender equality, gender-based violence, impunity and justice from its vocabulary when calling for an end to sexual violence in the Republic of Congo.
But maternal health problems continue because women cannot decide when and with whom to have a child, how many children they want, or how to space their pregnancies.
If we look at many of the indicators of maternal health, right across the board they prove that investing countries are successful when they have made sure the investments are adopted according to the needs of the countries they are trying to help. What is not successful is trying to tell those countries, those communities, those people they are trying to help when it comes to maternal health, how to do it.
I sincerely hope we are past this kind of social Conservative ideology when it comes to maternal health, when it comes to development in general terms, which we saw with previous administrations both here in Canada and elsewhere. What we need to see is not only the commitment in words but the commitment in deeds and understanding. If we look at where other countries have made commitments to the millennium goals and said not only would they support them in words but in actions, we will see tremendous success in the projects they have invested in when it comes to maternal health.
Look at other countries that have been deeply involved in the issue of maternal health over the past three years. Last year alone, other countries pledged $5 billion to a new global consensus for maternal, newborn and child health. In 2007, Norway and Holland pledged $1.2 billion over 10 years for maternal and child health. I said earlier that we are coming to this conversation late, and the statistics I just read into the record would show that. Other countries have not only said they are interested in this but they have actually said “here is the money down on the table to invest”.
What we need to see is not just someone who has come late to a debate and understanding of an issue, and make no mistake, we welcome and embrace that the government wants to deal with maternal health, but we need to see profound understanding of the issue. We cannot just come to the table and say we want to do something and walk away without putting money on the table. Some have concerns, which I share, with an idea that there are going to be tags on dollars that are sent to help with maternal health. If that is the case, if that is what we are looking at, that is not going to help women who need help the most right now. That is just an ideological game that is being played by the government.
What we would hope from the government is, and I would actually support this motion, that it would say we want to embrace maternal health, we want to deal with the statistics that repeat themselves year after year, that women are the ones who suffer the most. Why? Because they are the ones on the front lines when it comes to third world economies.
I referenced the Democratic Republic of Congo. Right now there is a war going on there. It is a gender war, and the ones who are on the front lines are not soldiers; they are women. Rape is used as a weapon of war right now in the DRC. It is happening in other locations. These women are having to raise children whilst they are being subjected to rape, to intimidate communities to move them out from where they live so mining companies can go in and get their coltan and other minerals that end up fueling the conflict.
If we do not understand the role of women and gender, then we will have abandoned women, then we will have just given lip service to an issue that is so profound. And I am not talking about just giving them some clean water and things will be fine. I am talking about centring women in the decision making, women who, as I said, are on the front lines of conflict in the third world, who are on the front lines of making sure kids have enough, who have always been on the front line throughout history to ensure that our species actually exists.
If we look at what the government stated recently of its intention to have maternal health as a key issue for the G8 and, presumably, G20 talks and then look at the budget, there is a bit of a gap here.
The government says, on one hand, that it wants to embrace maternal health and make sure we invest and help women in terms of development and to make sure they have all they need to help their children. On the other hand, we see what its intentions are with the budget. In the next couple of years we would have thought the government would be saying it would raise its contributions for foreign aid to make sure maternal health would be funded, not just this year but at least for the next five years, because 2015 is the end of the millennium goal agenda. However, what we see is a government that is cutting foreign aid.
What do people say if they are on the front lines dealing with maternal health issues and they want to see those women in the Congo be able to take initiative and power over their lives and to give them the tools they need, because they know how to turn things around, and they need the resources and help from us? Would they say there is an honest broker here, someone who actually wants to help, when they look at the budget and see it is being cut?
We embrace the idea of maternal health as a priority. We want to make sure it comes without tags on dollars and on the places this money is to be spent. We want to make sure it helps women around the world. We do not want ideological lenses put on this. We want to make sure the money is going to the people who need it. But to finally do that, our government has to commit to it, not just in words but in deeds, and when it comes to the budget, it has failed.
If the government is to embrace this, it needs to change its economic priorities. It needs to make sure we have money for this year, next year and the years following.
The NDP will support the motion, not just today, but as we always have, now and for continuing years to make sure women abroad who need the help will get it.