Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague. I welcome him to the House. He has been a great colleague. He represents his people very well. Earlier he quoted his grandmother from British Columbia. I congratulate him for that, but I would like to bring another British Columbian's perspective to this issue.
We had Professor Young, a University of British Columbia law professor who specializes in gender equality, appear before the committee on Bill C-24. She said:
...this particular piece of legislation really doesn't, as far as I can see, have much to do with gender equality.
She went on to say:
...to claim that it is about gender equality is dangerous. I think it's dangerous because too often we cut off the really important, substantial, and tough conversations about gender equality by claiming that we've already dealt with it and we've dealt with it in some more formalistic way. I think to point to this legislation and say that the expansion of categories that get the same pay level is actually dealing with gender equality is to essentially short-sheet the conversation....
I think to frame it as a piece of legislation that speaks substantively to the issues of gender equality and cabinet composition is wrong, and it's dangerous.
Three times she used the term “dangerous”. I wonder how my colleague feels about this comment from a law professor who deals with gender equality as a specialty.