Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and pleasure to rise in the House today to speak to this very important topic. I will touch on a few different aspects of it.
I would like to start where the discussion left off with respect to increasing gender parity in the workplace and the labour market, and the ability of women to get into jobs, roles, and careers that traditionally they might not have been able to do so. I have been championing and working on this issue a lot since I came to the House. It speaks to giving women the tools they need to have the opportunity to fully explore and pursue the careers and jobs they aspire to have.
One of the things I advocated, and the government did do it, was to change maternity benefits for women. In the past, pregnant women were only able to access their maternity benefits eight weeks of the 15 weeks prior to their due date. This government made a real step toward changing that by allowing those maternity benefits to be taken 13 weeks prior, moving in the direction of properly putting the provisions and safeguards in place so women would have real opportunities to pursue a career at the same time as having a family and children.
Another issue is the size of the cabinet. This government has taken a dramatically different approach than the previous government did. It is very telling in the fact that it chose to reduce the size of the cabinet. More important, it made all members sitting around the table have an equal say. Whereas previous governments had fewer members of cabinet making decisions, this government said it wanted to have everybody who sat at the table to help make the decisions on behalf of Canadians. It is remarkable and should be applauded.
Two years later, we are now amending the legislation to catch up with this progressive step. It is only fitting that we need to to here with respect to pay. The truth of the matter is that the ministries that are changing, and we are seeing the full ministerial status come forward, such as la francophonie, science, small business and tourism, sport and persons with disability and status of women, are all ministries that deserve the full attention of the minister and the daily requirements demanded from them.
The interesting thing is that we never know the particular workload one minister will have at any given time. A lot of it has to do with who the opposition chooses to pick on that week, as we have seen with the Minister of Finance. We saw that with the Minister of Democratic Institutions at the beginning of our term. A lot of it comes down to the individual's workload and what he or she is dealing with at that time. As we have seen, all ministers who participate in cabinet contribute valuable efforts toward their own ministries.
One change that really caught my eye was the change from the minister responsible for infrastructure to the minister for infrastructure and communities. Being a former mayor, I am fully aware of the demands municipalities continually put on ministries, both at the provincial and federal levels, with asks, wanting meetings with the minister, and helping to shape legislation. For the first time, we see a minister, both in title and in practical implementation, fully devoted toward infrastructure and our communities.
At the municipal level, we need there to be somebody who has his or her full attention. That is exactly what we see with the changes related to the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities.
When we talk about the importance of these ministries, I hope we can focus on the fact, and I hope everybody would agree, this is not just in title but this is in practice. It is about ensuring we have the right tools in place and people have the right information so when they do get around the table to speak at cabinet, they are contributing equally.
I am extremely supportive of the legislation. I want to see this go through so we can get on with a progressive agenda. Quite frankly, until this point, cabinet did not offer that progressive stance.