Madam Speaker, it is such an honour to rise again to speak about the very important bill before us to put in place the beginnings of a pharmacare strategy, particularly as it relates to free contraception and diabetes medication.
As the critic for women and gender equality, I want to focus my comments more on contraception and the fact that this is long overdue if we want to talk about reproductive rights and if we want to talk about creating societies that really, truly uphold equality for women and gender-diverse people. What I found bizarre during the debate is that so many men in this place have fought with such fury against women's reproductive rights. It almost feels like I am back in the 1800s, with the great interest by men in this place fighting against the rights of women over our bodily autonomy and reproductive rights.
It is no surprise. The so-called freedom party, the Conservative Party, is certainly not free when it comes to people's bodily autonomy. I want to point to a couple of comments that were made quite recently. This was in the news today from when the Alberta Conservative member for Peace River—Westlock did an interview with a Liberal MP across the way. The Conservative member stressed that he supports Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's transgender policy that would vote to criminalize cannabis possession again if given the opportunity. Certainly with respect to bodily autonomy, he is supporting Danielle Smith. He also said, in regard to gay marriage, “I vote gay marriage down.”
It is freedom for some and not for others. I have written articles about this, actually, about how Conservatives believe in freedom for some and not for others. I would say there is not much pride in that level of homophobia, when the Conservative member for Peace River—Westlock said, “I vote gay marriage down.” Happy Pride from folks in the House, except for members from the Conservative Party, who have come out with petitions not supporting trans rights. Again, it is another attack on bodily autonomy.
Here we are, talking about women's reproductive rights, and there are a whole bunch of men in the Conservative Party fighting with great enthusiasm against our reproductive rights, against trans rights and against the rights of folks to have same-sex marriage. It is not just the member for Peace River—Westlock. In fact, the member from Carleton, the leader of the Conservative Party, voted against same-sex marriage in the 2000s and against backdoor anti-abortion legislation, Bill C-311 just in the last session, unanimously with all the Conservatives.
When we are talking about freedom, we are not talking about freedom for women and gender-diverse persons to have control over their reproductive rights. When we talk about the transgender community, we are certainly not talking about freedom of bodily autonomy for the transgender community. In fact despite our saying “happy Pride” and raising the pride flag today, there are members of the Conservative Party saying, “I vote gay marriage down”, full stop.
It is one thing for the Conservative leader to say “love is love” and that people can support whom they want, but when it came to Jordan Peterson, known for his anti-trans rhetoric, his homophobia, and his very clear views that violate the reproductive rights of women and gender-diverse people, he came out in full support of Jordan Peterson's agenda. Is that freedom? It is freedom for some and not for others.
The NDP has fought really hard to put in place a pharmacare plan that would include a suite of contraceptives so women and diverse-gender folks can have control over their body, over their livelihood and over their life. I know there are some men in the Conservative Party who want us to go back to the rhythm method. Thank God we have gotten past that to where people can make choices about their body, certainly women, and have control by taking things like birth control. I do not know many men who are running down the street begging for a birth control pill, so the fact they have taken so much time to obstruct a feminist agenda and a woman's right to choose is really telling to me. We cannot go back to that time.
I hear more and more Conservative members tabling anti-trans petitions that have been put forward in the name of so-called protection of the bodily autonomy of women and girls. They table bills that include backdoor legislation in the name of being tough on crime for violent offenders, even though it is opposed by all women's organizations that actually deal with gender-based violence. They are now trying to vote against women and gender-diverse people's access to contraception.
I have to ask this: Why do Conservatives hate women and gender-diverse people so much? Why are they so nosy about going into people's bedrooms? Why is there a thought in their head about who somebody should sleep with or whether somebody is gay or LGBTQ? Why does the so-called freedom party care so much about looking into everybody's bedrooms and finding out what they are doing, figuring out what contraception they are taking, whom they love or whether they want to have an abortion or not? There is nothing free about the party. It feels, actually, like we are going back into the 1800s.
Then Conservatives make the excuse that it is “only” contraception or “only” diabetes medication, which is peculiar to me. It is not surprising that they would think that it is “only” contraception, because the only people I have actually heard talk about pharmacare are men. I could be wrong but I have been here for a lot of the debate. Why would they care about pharmacare? Why would they care about contraception when primarily it has been a women's responsibility historically to deal with contraception? If they want to run out at all hours of the night buying condoms, that is fine. Do they expect women and gender-diverse people to have no choice over their bodily autonomy or reproductive choices so that they can have the rhythm method? This is 2024.
The fact is that, in the midst of Pride, we have to get more security at Pride marches because of anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, and people in the Conservative caucus are cheering on Roe v. Wade, which is not the only one as there are quite a number of social Conservatives, so that we can go back to the era when women were having back-alley abortions with coat hangers and bleeding to death, or 10-year-olds in the United States were having to give birth. I do not want to listen to that hooey. It is just privileged, sexist, homophobic, transphobic hooey.
Women and gender-diverse people have fought hard for their rights. They continue to fight for their rights, and it will not be very easy to just roll over them so there can be the new dude paradise.