Madam Speaker, to be clear, any insinuation that the New Democrats are not willing, with full heart and mind, to work with the government to correct the terrible atrocities that have been committed in the past is incorrect.
What my colleague just said is not true. This legislation seeks to set a limit on correcting the sex-based discrimination of 1951. She shakes her head no, but it is true. The women who advocated for this case, the warrior ladies, have said that if it is passed in its current form, it will not apply to them. It will not apply to their circumstances. That should give the government some pause.
Is the government going to suggest to us that it knows better than the women who have been fighting this case for 40 years, that Ottawa knows best rather than the women who have experienced and had to live with this racist legislation? Now, ministers of the crown are going to sit here and say they are wrong. Government did not consult with them, which the minister admitted, to her embarrassment. The government did not consult and it should have. She is embarrassed. Government did not consult. It wrote the legislation. It got it wrong, and the women are pointing it out.
For anyone to sit on that side of the House and say these women are wrong, I would dearly invite them to a conversation with these brave ladies who have fought so hard for basic, fundamental justice.