Mr. Speaker, gender equality is an extremely important issue for me. It should be one of our primary concerns, and we should take practical measures to do more in this area. I will therefore support this bill because it deals with an issue that is dear to me.
Then again, this bill, like other similar bills that talk about awareness, will not result in any real action. It is all well and good to dedicate days, weeks, or months to certain causes, but the fact remains that on every International Women's Day there are women who are sexually assaulted or beaten and on every International Day of the Girl there are girls somewhere in the world who are forced to marry men who are three or four times their age.
Talking about these issues is important, but so is taking action. Action is what allows us to forge ahead. Unfortunately, the government has missed opportunities to take meaningful action. My colleague from British Columbia introduced a bill to increase the number of female MPs by imposing financial penalties on parties that did not run enough female candidates. That would have been a practical way to get more women in Parliament.
However, the government chose not to support that bill and, worse still, did not even let it go to committee. It voted against a bill on an important issue that would have helped us achieve gender equality, which is shameful enough, but it did not even give the bill a chance to go to committee, where experts could have spoken to its value and suggested improvements that would have made it acceptable to everyone. By doing that, the government sent the message that it was not even worth the trouble of trying to come up with something that works for everyone. That is the saddest part.
For a member of the governing party to remain silent rather than tell his colleagues that the bill is worth looking at in committee is deplorable. Maybe he just does not have enough clout in his caucus. Either way, it is a little sad.
The Prime Minister talked about his balanced cabinet. However, among the six senior ministers, which include foreign affairs, national defence, finance, treasury board, and justice, although I am missing one, there is only one woman, the Minister of Justice. He could have appointed three women and three men to lead those key departments, but he did not ensure that balance from the beginning.
In addition, in a cabinet made up of 30 ministers, the five minister of state positions, which involve tasks of a lesser magnitude and no budget to manage, are all filled by women. Seats could have been a little more evenly distributed, but they were not. There is still work to be done.
Gender equality is not only about having the same number of men and women in one place. If there are 30 employees at a company, and there are 15 women and 15 men, that does not automatically mean equality. If the 15 men are executives and the 15 women sweep the floor, that is not equality. We have to go beyond the numbers. When it comes to gender, we must always choose measures that increase equality.
Year after year, women continue to be the ones to perform the majority of household chores. Now they often work, too, but still take care of the house and the children and manage everyone's schedules. They basically have two full-time jobs. This causes a great deal of stress, and yet they get very little support.
For example, we still do not have an accessible child care program for women. Sometimes friends help us find child care at a reasonable cost that meets our needs. Other times, however, that is not the case at all. Just today on the bus, I was talking about the daycare that I found for my daughter. I was saying that I was fortunate because, in my situation, I cannot use public child care and I had managed to find a private facility that charges $25 a day. A woman on the bus approached me and asked where this day care was located because she pays twice as much for her child. What this actually means is that women sometimes earn less than minimum wage when we calculate all the expenses they must incur, especially for their children, such as child care. Thus, there really is a lot to do.
Let us talk about access to contraception. Canada does not have universal pharmacare. In Quebec, we are fortunate to have a drug plan that covers those without private insurance. Unfortunately, people are sometimes forced to take the private insurance offered by their employer, which is very expensive, even more so than government insurance. I will not go into the details. As I was saying, in Quebec, most people have the benefit of some type of prescription drug coverage, or at least they have that option. That is not the case in other provinces.
When it comes to contraception, each woman should choose what is most appropriate for her. Quite often, contraception is the sole responsibility of the woman. We are supposed to have an egalitarian society; however, in terms of the couple, this is more often than not the responsibility of the woman. The exception is Quebec, where vasectomies are most popular. Elsewhere, women bear the responsibility for contraception.
Some devices might be clinically more appropriate for certain women, but they simply cannot afford them. A hormonal IUD costs roughly $300. Many women do not have an extra $300. The IUD lasts five years, but there is still no payment plan available for making monthly payments for an IUD. For many women who cannot afford anything else, the only option ends up being contraception that is contraindicated for them.
A lot of work remains to be done when it comes to violence. Tangible measures can be taken, including in the justice system, to make the process easier for victims, to give them the courage to report, all in the hopes of creating a more egalitarian society. We keep taking baby steps when it comes to the status of women. We are treading water.
Unfortunately, although I intend to support my colleague's bill, gender equality week is not a tangible measure that is going to fix these problems. Maybe we will talk about them, but I think we have already done that. In the absence of other, complementary measures, this bill will not really get us anywhere.