Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his kind words.
We now agree on this issue, and we can move together on it. With respect to the idea that something is not in a mandate letter, if we put in every single thing, we would have a 24-page to 30-page mandate letter.
However, the commitment to gender equality in our government is clear. This is the first time that a prime minister has had 50% of women and 50% of men in his cabinet, and he took extra steps to make sure that occurred.
We have been committed to gender equality for a long time. Michael Ignatieff brought in a very similar motion when he was leader of the opposition, but it did not fly in the House at the time.
I agree that we do not always want to look to the past, but the commitment and the political will are here. We heard it from the President of the Treasury Board. This is something that we fully support in many ways. We need to bring forward the kind of legislation that would ensure the federal government is leading by example.