Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. I entirely agree with her. Pretending that we have parity in a photograph is not going to give us true parity in the government. A minister of state and a minister are not the same thing. They do not have the same responsibilities.
Would raising the salary of a minister of state and making it equivalent to a minister’s salary actually mean that the ministers are “of lower quality”?
A minister's responsibilities are different from those of a minister of state. They seem to be telling Canadians that a minister is no longer as important as before.