Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today to speak to this motion, which would concur in the unanimously written report on the gender-based analysis done by the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. There are many great recommendations in this report. It was well thought out. A lot of witnesses appeared before the committee. It was quite a refreshing read.
I will be splitting my time with the member for Yellowhead. Mr. Speaker.
I was going to speak at length about this report and its importance, but I want to respond to my colleague from Winnipeg North. He introduced the relevancy of the Prime Minister's brand of feminism in response to this motion. I think the thesis of his speech was because the Prime Minister was a feminist. Since the member introduced that as relevant to this discussion, I would like to refute some of these points.
First, the parliamentary secretary used as evidence of the Prime Minister's feminism the fifty-fifty gender-balanced cabinet. For those listening, with respect to cabinet responsibilities, in order to bring what is called a “memorandum to cabinet” to cabinet, a member needs to be a full cabinet minister. This means a cabinet minister has the right to bring a recommendation to cabinet.
The Prime Minister, when he appointed his fifty-fifty “gender-parity” cabinet, called a bunch of women cabinet ministers, but they did not have the right to bring memorandums to cabinet without a more senior minister's approval. In many cases, who was the more senior minister? A man. Is that true gender parity? I am not so sure. Has that situation been rectified? I do not think so.
Therefore, the feminist Prime Minister, with his gender-parity cabinet, gave these women cabinet positions in name only. He gave them less pay, lower office budgets, and less responsibility. That does not sound like gender parity to me. Nor did he put gender parity on cabinet committees with respect to their chairmanships. Most of the power lies in the cabinet.
That aside, I woke up on the morning of announcement of the cabinet appointments in 2015. Even though I do not agree with the political philosophy or ideology of some of the Prime Minister's cabinet, some of the women he has appointed to cabinet have really impressive CVs. Whether we agree with them or not, we have to agree that the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Health, as two examples, are accomplished women who have worked hard and have sacrificed a lot to get to where they are in their career. They are smart women.
I do not know how I would have felt if the day before cabinet was appointed, the Prime Minister had said that he was appointing a gender-parity cabinet. I would have felt like he was saying that I was only there because I was a woman, forget about my CV. If he really wanted to make these women truly equal, he could have just let it happen. He did not have to make it about himself. That is not true feminism. For the Prime Minister to take credit for this the day before, as opposed to letting these women stand on the merit of their own CV, is the worst of tokenism.
This is the sort of stuff that degrades women and makes them not to want to do this sort of stuff. We work hard for where we are. I have worked hard to get here. I have sacrificed a lot. I really hate it when the Prime Minister's brand of armchair feminism is used as a defence for not getting anything done.
My colleague from the NDP who has raised this motion has a point. The Liberals have done nothing. They have not taken actions on the recommendations of this report. Instead, the parliamentary secretary says that it is because the Prime Minister is a feminist. Let us talk more about his feminism.
The Prime Minister had the opportunity to be a feminist when it counted. He could have, on the first instance of a motion in the House of Commons, declared the Yazidi genocide a genocide. Tens of thousands of women are being held as sexual slaves in Iraq, and for months on end, he could have said that he was a feminist, that he would help those women, and take a stand for them. However, he voted against that motion. It took months of dragging him, kicking and screaming, to the point when finally, after international pressure, after a sex slave survivor stood in the balcony and said, “You are going to do something for women finally”, did something. If he were a real feminist, he could have done that. Did he do it? No.
Then I look at things like his trip to New York last week. He was supposedly talking to women about the problems they faced as small business owners. I would argue that the Prime Minister is neither a woman nor a small business owner. Surely a woman in his cabinet could have had that conversation for him, but, no. Again, he made it all about himself and the photo op. I believe there was an article written in the National Post about this very thing, saying that it got it, that he was a “feminist” and asked why he did not now start getting the real work done for women.
When there are people on the left or the right decrying the fact that the Prime Minister's catch phrase “feminism” is not getting things done, maybe government members should stop standing in the House of Commons and using it as a defence over and over again. It is starting to get a little vomit worthy, to be honest.
The other thing I find ridiculous is this. If the Prime Minister were truly a feminist, why would he not stand and speak against things like female genital mutilation or early and forced marriage? Here is the other thing. In the last Parliament, I stood in the House of Commons and talked about matrimonial property rights, something Canada should have done decades ago. What did the feminist Prime Minister do? The feminist Prime Minister voted against giving first nations women matrimonial property rights. Is that a feminist? No, it is not.
Where the rubber hits the road with feminism does not matter what one's political ideology is. We will all have different opinions, political philosophy, or political ideas on how to get to gender parity, or how to tackle the issue of pay equity, or how to deal with the issue of child care. We all have different approaches on how to do that, but I would argue this. The least effective way to get there is to stand and say, “I am a feminist, take my picture. Isn't that fantastic?” No, that does not get things done. What gets things done is implementing the recommendations in the report today.
My colleague asked the parliamentary secretary a question about why the government's “feminist” budget had back-ended all the funding for “child care” after it cancelled the child tax credit. Canadian women know where things are at. We know what it takes to make ends meet. We know the sacrifices it takes to get ahead in our careers, or balance child care with paying the bills. In my province, women know what it is like to carry the burden of their spouses who are out of work while being out of work themselves and trying to put their kids in hockey. These are the real issues that matter to women, not the photo opportunity, disingenuous “I am a feminist” thing that happens over and over again.
I have heard the argument that if the Prime Minister is a feminist, why are we sending billions of dollars of military equipment to countries that do not allow women to drive. Where is the criticism of their regime? Where is the criticism of the practices of state governments that do not allow women to worship freely, to speak freely, or to vote? Every time the opportunity arises for the Prime Minister to do something that actually matters for women, what happens? Someone stands and says he is a feminist.
I watch him day after day in this place and make a woman answer questions for his ethics scandals. Is that feminist? I do not know, but I know this. I know the retort that this is not getting done because the Prime Minister is a feminist is not cutting it anymore.