Mr. Speaker, the struggle for women's rights and equality in our society is huge and complex. It should be over by now. We should be there already.
I hope that, one day, violence against women, gender discrimination, sexism, sexist advertising, and pay equity issues will be things of the past. I hope that our grandchildren will read about such things in the history books and have a good laugh about how weird their ancestors were, but that is not yet our reality. We have a lot of work to do and a lot of battles to fight.
I would like to point out to the House that pay equity problems in today's labour market affect women's capabilities and buying power, but these problems will also have repercussions down the road when women retire. Because of this issue, poverty is much more common among retired women than among retired men. We need a big-picture, long-term perspective on this problem so that we can help women who are working now and who will be retired in the future.