Mr. Speaker, today is International Women's Day, a day to celebrate women and girls, but today is also a day to fight. COVID-19 has had very serious consequences for women around the world. In Alberta we have not seen women's unemployment rates so high since the 1980s. In Canada, even after 50 years of promises, women still do not have the national child care program recommended by the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada, and around the world girls are leaving school at alarming rates, crippling their future and making them vulnerable to early marriage and sexual violence.
As a woman who has fought for equality for women and girls my whole life, both in Canada and around the world, I will celebrate today; as a women who has benefited from the leadership and strength of those who have come before me, I will celebrate today; and as a woman who has seen the power and the potential in my daughter and in all young women, I will celebrate today.
However, I will also fight.