Mr. Speaker, if the member opposite had been sitting through the testimony we have been hearing at the status of women committee, which has been studying federal barriers to women's economic justice in Canada, over the past year he would have heard some devastating stories about how women right now in this country have fallen so far behind, women who have worked their whole lives who end up at homeless shelters when they are evicted because they are not able to find affordable housing, or women who retire in poverty because they have never been able to put aside a pension because they have always worked in part-time, precarious work with no access to EI or benefits.
I really would have thought, if this were truly a feminist budget, that the government would have funded the implementation of pay equity and that, at a minimum, it would have taken up the call of the Canadian Labour Congress to establish an office of a pay equity commissioner to start to put the works in place so that we can get action for women and get more money in their pockets right away. It is not just and I want to hear from the member why there was no funding for pay equity in this budget.