Debates of April 11th, 2017

Status of Women

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the tenor of the speech of the member across the way. In a very real way, he brings up some examples.

When we look at the way women in many different environments have had to struggle to try to achieve what quite often men take for granted, we see it can be a great challenge. This is one of the reasons why I believe what we will find is that many feminists, in particular women, will say that one of the greatest allies is in fact men who recognize the importance of being a feminist.

One does not have to be female to be a strong feminist. Being a male and being a feminist is a positive thing. As leaders from within our community, as members of Parliament, would the member not agree that all 338 members of the House of Commons have an important role in terms of being feminist all of the time?

I made reference to some of the barriers in the past that have to be overcome and why it is so important that we have a gender analysis done whenever possible. I wonder if the member would provide his thoughts on the important advocacy role that all members of the House, of both genders, have to play to ensure that the right thing is done.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I believe, and I have always believed, that when we are working with members of the opposite sex we must treat them with respect and due diligence. We are all equal in this House, men and women. We have to send that message out across this country. I do not like using buzzwords. Call me a feminist if you want; I probably am when one looks at the whole picture, but I believe we need to respect each other, and we need to show that in leadership across the country.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very relevant comments.

Does he also think that greater efforts must be made to encourage women and ensure that they are welcome in industries that traditionally employ more men? Conversely, men could also be encouraged to go into occupations that typically employ more women at this time.

What does he think of such efforts and of the federal government's role in efforts to encourage more gender-diverse work environments?

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think there is a very important role that the government needs to play to encourage people, whether male or female, to enter into any career they choose.

I am a commercial pilot, as well as an RCMP officer. I have worked with both female and male commercial pilots. Each have their qualities. I have seen some very good female pilots and I have seen some very good male pilots, as well as some bad and bad. Therefore, with respect to occupations, we should encourage young people to look at all walks of life, look at all careers, and challenge themselves into picking a role or a job for which they feel they would best be suited.

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his intervention, and my other colleague for something he said on which I think we really need to focus. I am not a quota. I am not the feminist buzzword. I do not like labels. I do not like putting people into class systems.

This is about gender diversity, whether that is men going into fields where there are typically women or vice versa. I think it is important that we look at it as gender diversity as opposed to labelling women and putting us into a quota, which in my estimation is offensive to the nth degree, and calling everybody a feminist. We need to really move off that and really work together, both genders, on gender diversity. I would like my colleague's comments on what he thinks about that.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, very much like my colleague, I do not like using a whole bunch of buzzwords. I believe that all men should treat women with due respect, and that all women should treat men with due respect. We are equal. When we are doing the same job and working in the same environment, we should all have the same equal respect for each other. We do not need to brag about this or brag about that. They are the same as we are and we are the same as they are when we are working in the same environment. Let us respect each other the same way.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to participate in this debate, following two of my colleagues who I thought gave excellent speeches, and to talk about the issue of gender-based analysis, to talk about issues of gender in our politics. In my remarks today, I am going to talk about them in a number of different areas.

What I want to say right off the top is one of the things that troubles me a bit is this presumption about women's issues and men's issues. In my constituency the issues that women write to me about are often the same issues that men write to me about. It is not the kinds of stereotypical issues. A lot of people in my riding and across Alberta are very concerned about the state of the economy and are very concerned about what is happening in the energy sector. I get a lot of correspondence, yes, from women who are concerned about the energy sector. They are concerned about the fact that they may be losing jobs in the energy sector, that members of their family, male or female, may be losing jobs in the energy sector, and the lack of response from the government to those issues.

We know there are certain kinds of occupations where women are overrepresented. There are certain kinds of occupations where men are overrepresented. We see that on both sides of the ledger. At the same time, we also see that the interest in the broad spectrum of issues, in this particular example, energy and the economy, is really part of what I hear, and I think what other members of Parliament hear, from women as well as from men. We need to think about that in the context of the full spectrum of issues.

A lot of women contact my office about issues around national security, support for the military, and our response to terrorism. These are issues that deal with Canadian security, the security of Canadian society. Sometimes people are motivated in terms of support for the military by the fact that members of their family, or sometimes themselves, are in the military. Sometimes it is a broader concern with policy issues.

We cannot really be too narrow about talking about women's issues versus men's issues. I think that is some of what this committee report actually speaks to in terms of saying we need to look at the impact of a range of different policy areas, the particular impact of them on women, and we need to be listening to the perspectives that women as well as men bring across the spectrum of issues.

We also need to recognize that sometimes there is a failure to recognize this in certain quarters. We need to recognize that women have the full range of possible opinions on different issues as well, even on contentious social questions, such as abortion or anything else. Women have different perspectives on these issues. They do not all have the same opinion on these kinds of questions. Sometimes the discourse does not reflect that reality, that there is intellectual diversity among women just as there is intellectual diversity among men.

We could say that about women, that women are interested in the full range of issues. The same, by the way, is true of men. Men are also very concerned about child care, about support for families, about safe communities. That should be obvious to all members, but sometimes it is not reflected in the way we talk about things. There has been a lot of discussion recently about how we make the House of Commons more family friendly. Sometimes those issues are discussed as if they were only of concern to women, but they are of course a concern for men as well. How people integrate work with family life is something that men and women both have to pay attention to.

I think that is some important context as we proceed with these discussions.

I do want to pick up on some of the themes in terms of specific issues that have been raised by colleagues throughout this debate. There are, in particular, three key policy areas that we can discuss with respect to the particular impact on women and reflect a discussion that has happened at the status of women committee and that is happening in Canadian society more broadly.

Obviously, when we talk about women's issues, one of the first things that people bring up is the question of child care, as it has come to be called, the way in which people who have children either look after those children themselves or engage somebody else in their life to look after those children at certain times of the day.

Oftentimes when we talk about child care, our friends on the left, in the government and in the NDP, want to paper over some of these distinctions between the way in which people look for child care options. The only solution they want to talk about is government-funded and often government-administered child care programs. The parliamentary secretary who spoke recently was very proud of the amount of money that the government proposed to put into state-run day care programs.

We in the Conservative Party took a very different approach. It was actually a very popular approach. Some of the polling results I saw showed that it was the most popular policy we had implemented, and we implemented a lot of popular policies, but this one was the most popular. We said we were not going to decide how parents should raise their children. We were not going to say that there was a one-size-fits-all approach with respect to child care. We said we would give more support directly to parents so they could decide how they wanted to use their own money. Families in my constituency told me they liked our emphasis on choice and flexibility, that they wanted to be able to use their own money to raise their children in the way they saw fit.

There is a whole spectrum of models with respect to how people raise their children. In some families, one parent stays at home. In some families, both parents may stay at home but at different times with some sharing of the responsibilities. Some families may have someone come into their home to look after a child. It might be a family member, a neighbour, or someone they hire to do that work. Some families use external child care services, and that too may take different forms. It may be a private home or it may be a centralized child care centre in the form that the government wants to support exclusively.

Another proposal that the Conservatives as a government explored was that we could help employers facilitate the creation of infrastructure for child care within their workplace. Parents could bring their children with them to work and have them looked after on sight or close by so they could easily access their children on breaks and at other times, particularly if there was a pressing urgent need. Parents would have that flexibility but it would be in the context of their place of work.

I could go on listing different kinds of child care arrangements.

We see more and more that people are combining arrangements. One parent might work full time or a bit less while another member of the family works part time. They adjust their hours so that there is always one parent with the children. Their children might be in a particular program a couple of days a week and the parents would adjust their time accordingly. This is the kind of normal flexibility we often see in families today.

The previous Conservative government took the approach that it was not up to the state to make a value judgment about what was the better way children should be raised. We applaud parents who make any choice that they believe to be in the best interests of their children. We applaud their good intentions in doing so. We believe they, and not the state, are best positioned to make decisions with respect to child care.

The approach that we emphasized was flexibility. The Liberal government lauds its approach, which is completely different. One might say it is less feminist. It seeks to take more money from people in the form of taxes and thus limit their choices. Putting money into one specific option may work for some families in some situations in some places but likely will not work for other families in other situations or other places.

There is more we could do to support families through different kinds of flexible arrangements. We could do more with respect to maternity and parental leave. We could increase the flexibility of that. There was a time when people had to work at a place outside of their home, for example, in an office or a plant or whatever. There was a time when there was no working from home. People either went to work outside their home or they stayed at home.

Nowadays that reality is very different. There are a lot more people working from home, perhaps with flexible hours. A lot more people, because of the Internet, can be involved in direct sales. Many new parents in my social network do not want to be stuck in that binary between going to work or staying at home. They may want to develop some combination thereof. Parents might think about starting a business that they can manage from home, such as working in direct sales or some other avenue that allows them to do that work while also being at home with their children. That is a flexibility that is facilitated by technology.

As legislators we need to recognize that reality on the ground in terms of what people want to do and we need to see what we can do to be supportive of that reality. That means trying to make the programs for maternity and parental leave more flexible and reasonably financially advantageous so someone can say, “I want to stay at home with my new child for a certain period of time, but I also want to take a couple of files home from work.” People may want to maintain a more flexible relationship with their employer while taking a longer period of time at home, perhaps to facilitate an easier transition back to work, but also to maintain some degree of engagement outside of the home environment.

That is a choice that many people might want to make, but not everyone would want that. Others might prefer to make the choice of staying at work or being at home full time. Recognizing that more and more it is possible for people to combine being at home and working, we need to also recognize that the way in which we provide maternity and parental leave has not actually kept up with that. I know there was a pilot project in place which provided some of that support, but we need to make those types of programs permanent. We need to increase the ability of people to keep doing some work on the side while on parental leave.

I will just share on anecdote on that. This is a pretty clear case of someone I know whose child was being watched by a friend during the day. That person was being paid, but then that person had another child and could not continue to provide that child care service to someone else. Theoretically they could, but it was not financially advantageous for them to do so because as soon as the person providing the child care had another child, they could claim certain benefits, but they could not claim those benefits if they were earning unemployment income. It did not make any sense that one family lost child care and the other family lost an opportunity to earn some income because of the perverse incentives in the benefits structure. These are things we need to look at and explore in terms of enhancing flexibility of child care.

That is a very different mentality that we bring to the discussion than the government and the NDP do, because they see child care as a one-size-fits-all approach, that we need to fund these kinds of centres that are often government administered. From my perspective, that is quite at odds with what families are looking for. Some families are looking for that option, but other families are looking for different options. We need to have flexibility.

The government also took away choice from families by doing away with income splitting for young families. It left income splitting in place for seniors, but not for young families. Income splitting recognizes the reality that different families make different kinds of choices, but it ensures that all families with the same family income pay the same amount of tax. Under the new system the Liberals have brought in, there can be different families who, because of their child care choices and the kinds of work and family balance they choose to have, might have to pay a higher rate of tax than a different family who makes a different set of choices but has the same income. As I said, state institutions should be neutral with respect to these kinds of choices and should give families the greatest possible flexibility.

Having spoken about these issues around child care, I would like to now proceed to talk a bit about changes with respect to criminal justice. I had the opportunity of sitting at a number of meetings of the status of women committee in its study of violence against women. Before being elected, I was on the board of an organization in my constituency that provided counselling services as well as public education in an effort to combat bullying, more generally, but in particular, violence against women and sexual violence.

There are a number of worthwhile initiatives members in this House have championed that I think we need to work to move forward on. One of them, from our leader, is on providing better education to judges in terms of sexual violence, but there is more we need to do as well. My colleague from Peace River—Westlock put forward a motion to have the health committee study the impact of violent sexual images and how they might contribute to people having attitudes that then lead them to be perpetrators of violence against women. My colleague was quite right to raise this issue, and I look forward to the results of that health committee study. This is something we heard at the status of women committee as well from some of the witnesses who were also concerned about the relationship between people viewing certain kinds of violent images and perhaps acting those out. These issues have been taken up by different members of the House and need further discussion and further action.

We also, though, need to look at ways of addressing the reality of how many crimes related to sexual assault go unreported and how rarely those that are reported actually lead to convictions. We need to look at why this is the case. We need to explore reforms to our criminal justice system that will encourage people who are victims to come forward and increase the likelihood that if they have something terrible happen to them, and they have the willingness to go forward and make that accusation, it will actually lead to a conviction. We need to explore reforms to our system that will increase the likelihood of that, and of course, always, in all cases of crime, but in particular here, we need to champion the rights of victims, the protection victims have, and the ability of victims to have a meaningful role in the criminal justice process.

I want to touch finally on the issue of international affairs, because a commitment to women's rights as objectively reflecting something about who we are as human beings should not be limited to just our borders. It should be a commitment that extends to the actions within our control as a country all over the world. This means speaking out clearly about human rights. This means encouraging all of our ambassadors and other public servants to speak out clearly about human rights issues. That can mean some challenging situations, because it can require us to actually confront our allies on issues of gender-based violence and women's rights that may be an issue in their countries. It means confronting countries with whom we do not have good relationships but also confronting our friends, because that is what friends do in international politics, as well as in any other situation. They challenge each another to do better when it comes to issues of human rights.

We need to have a government that is going to speak clearly internationally on these issues, that is going to be confronting these abuses, and that recognizes, in the case of terrible abuses, like those perpetrated by Daesh, the need to defeat Daesh and ensure that its approach to women's rights, as well as to human rights more broadly, is one we confront effectively and with the full measure of force.

In the previous government, these were issues we raised. Sometimes they were not issues our allies wanted us to raise, but we raised them anyway. On issues of criminal justice reform and international affairs as well as on child care, I am proud of the approach we took, and I think these are issues that require further discussion.

I will just say briefly that it is unfortunate that mostly what we hear from the government is an emphasis on the cabinet it appointed. Regardless of that decision, what I hear on the ground is not that we need more of this or less of this in cabinet. What I hear from people on the ground is a concern about policy outcomes that affect their lives. My colleagues have done a good job of pointing out the smoke-and-mirrors show associated with the supposedly gender-based cabinet, where some of the female ministers cannot even bring memorandums to cabinet. They were initially paid less and are at a lower rank in terms of the way the cabinet system works. There is a dissonance in terms of the words and the reality.

More fundamentally, what women and men I talk to are concerned about are actual policy outcomes. They are concerned about choice and flexibility when it comes to the arrangements parents use with their children, about criminal justice reform, and about a strong commitment to international human rights.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a rather simple question for my colleague from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan who, as always, delivered an excellent speech in the House of Commons. My question has to do with what he said.

The state has to be neutral with regard to early childhood education programs. Study after study has demonstrated that the best result for children, of course, is to be raised in stable families and to have a loving environment. However, the second-best result, and by far, is to have early childhood education programs that are publicly run. Study after study has shown that in Canada.

I have a question for the hon. member. Why should the state be neutral when, clearly, the best option, outside of the family, would be a government-provided, government-trained early childhood education program? We have opportunities for families to raise their kids at home by having the Canada child benefit, which, once again, the member voted against. This provides an important opportunity for Canadian families to have money in their pockets to provide them with a range of different services.

Aside from that, initiatives in budget 2017 would allow for the opportunity to create these childhood education spots. Why would the hon. member, who is a very intelligent man, want to stand against that?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to be very clear. First of all, the Liberals' child benefit removes the universality dimension. It is basically a redistribution or a repackaging of the universal child care benefit, which the Conservative government put in place. It was our party that championed a direct-support-to-families approach. At the time, it was that member's party that ran against it.

I would very strongly dispute the member's claim that all the research says that kids do better when they are in government-run facilities. I am happy to read whatever the member would like to present in terms of actual evidence on that point. He can certainly send it over to me. I would appreciate it. Most of the evidence I have read has suggested a very different conclusion.

Maybe this just comes down to a different philosophical view of what the role of the state is. Conservatives believe that the role of the state is to empower families to make choices that reflect their values. They believe that parents have a prior right to the education of their children and to be primarily engaged in shaping child care options that reflect their values and priorities.

It is part of nature that parents have this primary attachment and primary love for their own children. It is not right or just for the state to come in, except in very extreme circumstances, to try to tell parents how they should their raise children because the state thinks their children are going to conform to its way of thinking or perhaps reflect its notions of the good life. That is at odds with fundamental justice. That is what we believe on this side of the House.

This is a debate we have had in successive elections, but I think all the data suggests that Canadians are on the Conservatives' side with respect to that. We are proud to champion an approach that emphasizes the prior and primary role of parents.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this debate actually gives us an opportunity to discuss in a reasonable way, and in low decibels, what we want for our children. I really think this is a good opportunity, so I am going to be very personal in sharing that it is important that we, as members of Parliament, recognize that one size does not fit all. Canadian parents will make different decisions for their kids.

This is going to sound odd, perhaps, but I was blessed that I did not qualify for child care or maternity leave. At the time my daughter was born, I was employed on a part-time contract with an environmental organization, and my work there was essential for the organization and also for my own state of well-being. Because I was working for a relatively small charity, I was able to organize workplace child care. The benefits for me personally were enormous. I was with my daughter every single day for the first three years of her life. I was able to arrange for her to get the benefits, and there is no question that there are benefits for children in early childhood education. She gathered with other children from the time she was about two years old in little play groups and things, and early childhood education was available.

I suggest to my friend that there is too much emphasis on the dogma around state-run child care. The state needs to provide, and we need, as a critical issue, more child care spaces available for Canadian parents. Both parents are, increasingly, in the workforce. I would ask all members to consider whether we can do more to organize child care, however conceived, so that it is in the workplace so that one or the other parent, throughout the day, can be there for their child.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, although I do not agree with my friend from the Green Party on everything, she makes a very good point about the benefits of having workplace child care available. Again, different families make different choices, but the option of going to work and knowing that one's child is getting care within the same building, perhaps, or very close by, a lot of parents would find very attractive.

What is unfortunate about budget 2017 is that it would eliminate a tax credit for employers who invest in the infrastructure necessary to put in workplace child care. Workplace child care was emphasized by the previous government. It said it would provide a tax credit to employers who wanted to facilitate the development of workplace child care on site. We were not going to micromanage it, but we were going to give a tax credit to employers who wanted to provide it as a benefit. I think many employers would want to provide it, perhaps as a recruitment or retention tool but also to reflect the interests and desires of their employees.

This was in place, and the Liberal government, much on talk when it comes to women's issues and feminism, cancelled this tax credit in budget 2017, further reducing and limiting choices not just between staying at home versus child care but between different child care options people might want to pursue.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I had the experience of being in opposition in Queen's Park in the province of Ontario when Bob Rae was the New Democratic premier. He passed a bill called the quota bill. For anyone who wanted to work for the civil service, priority was given to people of colour, women, aboriginals, and a couple of other categories. When the Conservatives got into office, the bill was quickly repealed, because it was discriminatory.

The Prime Minister, since he came into office, has taken great pride in the number of women in his cabinet and in the equality of those women. The question, of course, is whether they are there because they are women or because of their experience and qualifications for cabinet, which is most important in the running of this country.

Could the member comment on whether it is discriminatory and whether the best people are in cabinet?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think the best people would be in cabinet if we had the Conservatives in government.

In terms of the question, I think there is plenty of incompetence to go around in this cabinet, regardless of gender. There are some very capable people with strong backgrounds on both sides, men and women.

I will just say this about the cabinet. There was a much-promised commitment to a gender-balanced cabinet, but it was not a gender-balanced cabinet, even if we include the junior ministers, because the Prime Minister is part of cabinet as well. This was missed by someone along the way.

As well, as colleagues have pointed out, some of those ministers—and it is actually only women ministers who are in this junior position—are not able to bring memoranda to cabinet and initially were paid less, until the government brought forward legislation to increase their pay without in any way fundamentally changing their role.

If the Liberals had wanted a gender-balanced cabinet, they could have appointed one, but they did not. They just wanted to say they had appointed one. I think my colleague pointed out that when we put so much emphasis on the symbol as opposed to the policy implications for Canadians, sometimes the symbol does not match the reality at all. I think Canadians are looking for real action on some of the important policy issues that I brought up, not this aggressive emphasis on the symbolic as opposed to the substantive.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with my excellent colleague from Vancouver East.

The equality of men and women is a fundamental Canadian principle. Over a decade ago now, I worked on pay equity in Quebec. Quebec has pay equity legislation. I was fighting for gender equality over 10 years ago, and now, unfortunately, I have to do the same thing here at the federal level, because it has not been achieved. The federal government has a long way to go in this area.

The NDP has always fought against discrimination against women in all its forms. Examples of things the NDP has fought for include equal opportunity, income security, equal pay for work of equal value, full political participation, reproductive and sexual health rights, supports for caregivers, and many more.

Unfortunately, despite the ongoing battle, discrimination against women continues to exist in Canada. I want to give a little bit of historic context. Twenty-two years ago, in 1995, Canada signed the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which committed the Canadian government to conducting gender-based analysis. I made reference to this type of analysis, known as GBA, earlier. Unfortunately, successive governments have not lived up to that commitment.

Furthermore, as the Auditor General has pointed out in two separate audits, GBA is still only being deployed on a piecemeal and sporadic basis in Canada. Out of 110 government departments and agencies, only 27% actually have a process in place to conduct GBA. In those departments that are doing GBA, the analysis remains incomplete or is lacking in quality in too many cases.

Many witnesses appeared before the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, and the NDP agrees with much of their testimony. Let me give a few examples. One witness said, “women’s equality is harmed when the government does not take into account the impact on women when creating laws, policies or programs”. It was also said that “one of the principal barriers to implementing GBA across the federal government is the absence of mandatory requirements”. Here is another comment: “There is an urgent need to provide the necessary resources to support Status of Women Canada in fully implementing GBA in all departments.” That just makes sense.

The NDP agrees with all of that and with the committee's recommendations regarding the absolute need for comprehensive legislation to mandate GBA across the federal government and the need to give adequate resources to Status of Women Canada.

I would like to come back to the reports of the two auditors general. In 2009, the Auditor General of Canada criticized the government’s implementation of GBA and called for clear expectations and guidelines for departments to conduct GBA. That was in 2009.

In 2015, the Auditor General again reviewed GBA and found the same lack of government leadership and the same inadequate implementation of GBA. In other words, we were no further ahead.

Nancy Cheng from the Office of the Auditor General said in committee, and I quote:

In our 2015 audit, we observed that gender-based analysis was still not fully deployed across the federal government, although 20 years had passed since the government had committed to applying this type of analysis to its policy decisions. In other words, gender considerations, including obstacles to the full participation of diverse groups of women and men, are not always considered in government decisions. This finding is similar to what we found in our 2009 audit.

After 20 years of international and domestic commitments, only 30 out of 110 government departments and agencies are formally engaged in GBA. The Auditor General’s 2015 audit also found that within four departments that implemented the GBA framework, analyses are not always complete or of acceptable quality. This observation was made in almost half of all cases of GBA, which is further proof of the government’s failure to properly implement GBA.

Several witnesses gave us a list of failures, as did the Office of the Auditor General of Canada. One of these failures is the absence of government directives, policies, and leadership. There were also the tight deadlines for developing policies and programs; the lack of understanding of the relevance of GBA, which serves as the basis for action; ineffective training or a lack of training altogether; a shortage of data or an inability to find relevant, reliable, and complete data that is disaggregated by gender and other identity factors; a lack of capacity to undertake the analysis; and no external reporting by departments.

This is a consistent failure to take women's equality seriously in government.

I will now ask a few questions. Had GBA been properly implemented would we still be lacking a national child care strategy? Would we have specific economic stimulus targeted to women? Would we have a national action plan to end violence against women? The questions have been asked.

For years, government departments and agencies such as Finance Canada, the Treasury Board Secretariat, and Canada have failed to turn down proposals that do not meet GBA requirements. Something is missing.

Cabinet has directed the central agencies to require GBA for all submissions to cabinet, and we applaud that decision. We also urge the government to bring in legislation to make it binding on all future cabinets. Action is needed. We need to pass legislation to strengthen the challenge function. We need a law. We need action, and not just rhetoric. The government must put its words into action. It must implement urgent legislative changes to ensure that each and every government policy, program, and law promotes the equality of Canadian women.

We are pleased that the committee report recommends that the government introduce comprehensive legislation to make GBA mandatory for all government departments and agencies. However, that does not adequately reflect the urgency of the situation.

Cindy Hanson, associate professor in adult education at the University of Regina and president elect of the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, reminded us that, back in 2005, the Standing Committee on the Status of Women indicated that legislation and accountability mechanisms were urgently required. We are hearing the same thing 12 years later. Where is the urgency?

Olena Hankivsky, a professor at the School of Public Policy, Simon Fraser University, said that we do not need more studies. What we need is real action, and we need it now.

Canadian women have waited 20 years and should not be forced to wait any longer. The New Democratic Party therefore recommends that the government uphold its commitment to gender equality and introduce legislation by June 2017, which is soon.

The government could follow the example set by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the only department that has been successful in implementing GBA. It is required by legislation to conduct GBA and report its results to Parliament every year. The effects were immediate and long-lasting. Fraser Valentine, director general of Strategic Policy and Planning, told us that the legislative requirement to produce annual reports influenced the department's culture and that the department had to build the necessary capacity immediately to meet that requirement. This had a knock-on effect throughout the department.

I would like to mention one final point raised by witnesses and the NDP. If we want to achieve equality, there has to be oversight. That is Status of Women Canada's role, but it has limited resources.

The government must ensure that Status of Women Canada has the human and financial resources it needs to do the job properly, and the NDP is ready to work with the government to make that happen.

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her remarks.

As Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, I am very pleased to say that our 2017 budget contains the first-ever statement on gender-based analysis. Perhaps the member would care to comment on that statement?

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying earlier, a statement is all well and good, but we need something concrete. We need legislation. The Liberals can talk until they are blue in the face, but talk amounts to nothing if there is no action.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, on the question of women's rights and women's equality, my colleague talked about a whole range of different issues. However, tied into that is the housing issue. There is a crisis with respect to homelessness. I note that in budget 2017-18, for this year there is a big fat zero with respect to that.

Would the member have some comments around women and the issue of homelessness, or precarious housing conditions? That, too, is tied into the whole issue of women's equality, especially their access to equal pay.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question because not only is the population getting poorer, but women are getting poorer.

The face of homelessness is changing. It used to be mainly men, but now we are seeing more women, even though in their case it is more a matter of hidden homelessness. We also know that senior women are becoming poorer because their salaries were not as high as those of men.

Today, it is women who take leave because their salary is usually lower than that of their male spouse. The same goes for their pension fund, if they even have one. Women are getting poorer and are having a hard time finding housing that they can afford.

If we improved equity, namely pay equity, women could find decent housing, have a decent life, and avoid ending up in the street.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as we discussed, this budget eliminates an important tax credit to help employers build infrastructure for child care in their workplace. The government is removing an important tax credit tool, not a government control tool, for employers to help facilitate the creation of more child care options. I do not know if we have heard it yet, but I would be curious to know what the NDP's perspective is on that decision of the government.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot speak to that specifically, but here is what I can say.

It is nice to give money to parents to help them cover the cost of child care, but what the Liberal government gave families last year barely covers the costs. If a family has three or four children, the cheque covers only a fraction of the child care costs.

Also, if there are no child care spaces or a program to create them, then there is no use giving parents money to cover child care costs.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to enter into this important debate.

What are we talking about? We are talking about women and equality among women, and we are talking about, in my view, feminism.

We have heard this over and over again from the Prime Minister. He declares himself as a feminist. When we make that declaration, what exactly does that mean? It is really important for us, and for the Prime Minister as well, to understand what those words mean.

Yes, he has taken some actions with respect to showcasing his cabinet and ensuring that women are 50% of the cabinet. That is an important move. However, coming out of that, what other actions must the government take to ensure that all women, not just women in this chamber or, more specific, women within the cabinet, but all women in every walk of life, have the opportunities offered to men. What action must we take to ensure there is equality for all women and opportunities to succeed.

Let me touch on a few of these things.

We know that poverty is a major challenge in our country. We know that one in 10 people in Canada live in poverty; that is people who live below the low-income cut-off level. Put in context for women, 1.5 million women in Canada live on a low income. What will the government do to address that very specific issue of poverty for Canadians in general and more specifically for women.

I have looked at the policies that the government has put in place and I am dismayed. Something that is very basic, something we should expect, not for 2015 but at all times, is that the women should be recognized and their pay ought to equal that of their male counterparts. However, that is not the case. As it stands right now, I believe women make 74¢ on the dollar that our male counterparts make for equal work of equal value. What is wrong with this picture? If the Prime Minister is a feminist, as he wants to proclaim himself to be, what will he do on that score?

A committee studied this issue and it made a recommendation, a bipartisan recommendation, that action should be taken with respect to that, and that action should take place not years down the road, but here and now. What does the government do? It defers action until 2018. It will take a look at legislation and maybe that will take place in 2019 or maybe after, whenever, whatever.

That is what is happening. Is that a true feminist agenda, that in 2017 we do not take action to ensure that all women, no matter if they are in this chamber or outside of the chamber, are valued in the same way for work of equal value and therefore work for equal pay to their male counterparts? I am so astounded that the government has chosen that path and that course.

Issues of equal value and equal pay have lifetime implications. It is not just the now in the moment. If we are working, that moment counts. However, it is cumulative for the rest of the life of that woman. That is what is at stake here.

Earlier my colleague talked about the issue of women retiring. The implication is that their access to a pension is reduced, if they even have access to a pension. As we now know, more and more people are working in precarious jobs and even if they do have access to a pension, it will be reduced. Why? Because women do not get work of equal value for equal pay.

Let us look at financial security for women. The real issue also impacting women is that a significant number of women are working and making minimum wage. That too is a major issue. Why? Because more and more women are working part time, or are on contract, and are not getting the security they need for full-time employment. The Minister of Finance says that precarious work is now a fact of life. The government accepts that as though it does not have some role to play to ensure people have access to well-paying jobs and to ensure we as a society do something about that.

Looking at some of the statistics, it is shocking to me. Some 37% of first nations women living off-reserve are living in poverty. If we look at on-reserve, that number is even more astounding. Some 50% of status first nations children live in poverty, which by extension means women are also living in poverty. Some 23% of Métis and Inuit women live in poverty. Twenty-eight per cent of visible minorities live in poverty. Thirty-three per cent of women with disabilities live in poverty. For immigrant women, people like my mom, 20% are living in poverty.

We see these statistics. What are we doing about it? As legislators, as parliamentarians, we have some ability and opportunity to make a change that will impact the lives of people for the better, yet we see very little action from the government side.

Related to income security is the issue around homelessness. I touched on that a bit earlier. Let us just put this in context. One of the statistics provided puts homeless Canadians at 235,000. There was just a homelessness count done in my community. It is up 30% in metro Vancouver. Some 3,600 people in the region are without a home. That includes about 1,000 who are in shelters, sleeping on doorways, in alleys, parks, or couch surfing. That is not an insignificant number. That number has gone up 30%. Women are among them.

I have done the homelessness count before, back in the day I was an activist in the community. We are seeing women on park benches, and women, including senior women, on the streets on their own.

What do we see in this year's budget to address homelessness? Zero. It is as though somehow we can wait and push that down the road. I wonder, if it were people here and their families were homeless, would they say that they did not need urgent action and that we could wait another year or two for the government to take action? I would argue they would not.

For the Prime Minister who says he is a feminist, let me say this to him. Do something about it. Match words with real action, so that the people out in the community, all women, from all walks of life, can benefit and be lifted up in society to take their place. That is what a feminist would do.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague gave a very passionate speech about the need to do more for women, and I could not agree more.

I wonder if the member could talk about the fact that in the budget there is $11.2 billion for housing and $7 billion for child care. In fact, this particular budget is a perfect example of how GBA-plus works. First of all, it pointed out the limitations and barriers that our committee studied, which is that there is not enough disaggregated data. It shows that when we do put a gender lens on it, the number of times the word “women” appeared in the budget was almost once per page, 270 times in a 278-page budget.

When we look at the budget, we will see women specifically mentioned not just in areas that are particularly pertinent to women but also in things like trade and taxation policies.

I would say that this is actually a perfect case study of a success story. Would the member not agree?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, let me just say this. Having the word “women” appear on every page of the budget means absolutely zero when it does not actually come with real action.

The member talked about housing and homelessness, and the investment in it. Does the member realize that in the government budget on the homelessness line item for this fiscal year, it is actually zero? I wonder if the member recognized this as well on the issue around child care. In this year's budget, there are zero dollars attached to it.

The money is coming at some point in time; it is written all over the budget. How much longer, really, do women have to wait? Should women who are homeless today get comfort knowing the money is coming, while they are sitting outside in the snow or the pouring rain? Is it actually somehow okay? Is that okay for the member?

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I could not agree with my colleague more on many fronts. It is becoming very clear that the Prime Minister using the word that he is a feminist is merely a branding exercise.

When we look at the budget and hear that this is a feminist budget, I have a question for my colleague. When it comes to child care, billions of dollars were announced in this budget. None of these dollars will be forthcoming this year; 70% of the new money will not be spent until after 2022. There is no new funding in 2017-18 for early learning, child care, homelessness, home care, housing, research, northern housing, or indigenous housing programs.

What impacts does my colleague think this feminist budget will actually have for women?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly the point. There is a whole lot of talk, a whole lot of hot air, frankly, and a whole lot of inaction. Talk is cheap.

When we are talking about women, and that we want to ensure women have the support they need so that they can succeed, child care space is simply not available. In this budget, there are exactly zero dollars for this fiscal year invested in making those child care spaces available.

I have already spoken on the issue around homelessness. Somehow, for the government, it is okay to wait for some point in time. By the way, I might as well mention this. It was the Liberal government in 1993 that actually cancelled the national affordable housing program. As a result of that, this country lost more than half a million units of affordable housing that would otherwise have been built had that program not been cancelled. How is that for feminism? How is that supporting our community? In 2017, it is still not going to happen.