Christine Moore

[Canada Elections Act, June 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, does my colleague figure that people at party conventions would be paying a certain amount of money to attend an event with the party leader? That came up in a question from a Liberal MP.

It would not bother me to know that the Conservative Party organized a meet-and-greet with the leader at its convention. Most of the people paying to attend are already interested members.

Can we make a distinction, then, between events where business people are trying to get access to a minister or the Prime Minister to advance their interests and party conventions where members who have been involved for decades decide to pay extra to be at an event with the party leader?

[Canada Elections Act, June 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, from the beginning of time, it has always been the party in power that tends to raise the most money, because the owners of large corporations find it worthwhile to invest to try to get access to the government and therefore win contracts.

Should we not try to learn from the mistakes of certain provinces? Quebec, for instance, had a scandal involving political party financing, and that province had to reflect on other ways to solve this problem.

Would we not do well to learn from that and clean up our own house, once and for all, so that it is not always the party in power that stands to gain the most form political fundraising?

[Salaries Act, June 8th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, it is becoming increasing clear that the solution to the problem the Prime Minister created himself is a cabinet shuffle, not a bill.

I am wondering if my colleague could name any men in cabinet who have not been living up to expectations, who could be assigned other duties, so that the Prime Minister could hand those portfolios over to women ministers, after thinking about it over the summer.

[Salaries Act, June 8th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, when a minister of state is given a more important portfolio because he does good work, that is a promotion. People are motivated by greater responsibility and higher pay. Very motivated, in fact.

I am sure that if a minister of the Francophonie were offered a ministerial position with a whole department to look after, she would be pleased. If we pass this bill, there goes that motivation. People will simply be told that they have more duties, more responsibilities, and a whole lot more people to manage, but cannot expect a pay raise for it.

Is it motivating to get a promotion that is not really a promotion because the government says all ministers are equal?

That is not very motivating. We need two different pay grades for ministers of state and ministers because their jobs are really very different.

If the government decided to completely change the job description for ministers of state and give them a department and a budget, then maybe it would make sense, but that is not how things are right now, and that is not the way things are going.

We need to maintain these distinctions for now. I encourage the Prime Minister to appoint more female ministers. If he needs help with that, I myself can give him a little advice about some outstanding women in his cabinet who could replace a few of the men who have been doing a lacklustre job.

[Salaries Act, June 8th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, those positions are important in Canada because of our constitutional system.

At present, health is primarily managed by the provinces. For that reason, the role of the Minister of Health at the federal level is a little less important than the role of the Minister of National Defence, for example, since health budgets are managed primarily by the provinces. In the case of labour, 90% of employees in Canada fall under provincial jurisdiction rather than under federal jurisdiction.

When I talk about the six key positions, they are the ones that journalists and Canadians are most interested in when there is a cabinet shuffle. They are also the six ministers that people are most often familiar with. There is a good chance that people know who the Minister of Finance is, but when it comes to International Cooperation, for example, even though I would like it to be otherwise, people have a lot more trouble giving us a name.

[Salaries Act, June 8th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, one of the problems with having a minister from Ontario oversee the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec is that he does not understand the dynamics of Quebec and how it is the only province where we cannot negotiate directly with municipalities. Agreements need to be reached with the Government of Quebec. As a result of the minister's lack of understanding on this, Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec programs are not going so well.

The bill proposes simply to abolish the position. First the government appoints a minister from Ontario and then it insults Quebeckers by telling them that not only is a minister from Ontario going to take care of their province's economic development, but after that the position will simply cease to exist.

This does not make sense to me. I believe that we absolutely must go back to the arrangement where the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec was the responsibility of a Quebec minister or a minister representing this region. I believe that we must absolutely go back to that.

One thing is for sure: this provision alone is reason enough for me to oppose the bill. Not only does this make absolutely no sense, but ministers of state will now be paid the same as ministers, even if they do not have the same duties, responsibilities or officials to manage.

Why are they doing this? In truth, it is not out of fairness, but simply to correct the mistake that the Prime Minister made when he unveiled his original cabinet. It is all well and good to say that a gender parity in cabinet has been achieved because there are as many women as there are men; nonetheless there is still the issue of the responsibilities given to the women. That was problematic from the very beginning.

The six most important positions in cabinet, apart from the Prime Minister, are the following: the Minister of Public Safety, a man; the Minister of Foreign Affairs, a man, Stéphane Dion, when the Prime Minister formed his cabinet in 2015; the President of the Treasury Board, a man; the Minister of Finance, a man; the Minister of National Defence, a man; and the Minister of Justice, a woman. Of the six most important positions in the Government of Canada, there was originally only one woman. A cabinet shuffle rectified this. Now, the Minister of Foreign Affairs is a woman, because they decided to send Mr. Dion abroad. There is that at least, but there is still no gender balance when it comes to the six most important positions.

There are three House officer positions. When the cabinet was formed after the election, in 2015, the chief whip was a man, the member for Orléans; the Leader of the Government in the House was a man, big surprise, the name of his riding escapes me, but he is the current Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard. Lastly, there is obviously the leader, a man; the caucus chair, although chosen by the caucus, not the Prime Minister, is also a man. Originally, the House officers were men.

The Prime Minister made a mistake. For him, gender balance is as easy as putting 15 people on one side and 15 people on the other. However, we must never forget about the responsibilities that are given to women.

Madam Speaker, your title is the assistant deputy speaker. I do not believe that you would expect to have the same salary as the Speaker of the House, because you do not have the same duties or responsibilities. However, we recognize your role and importance. The House held an election. We have to stop thinking that, for true fairness to come about, all it takes is to give everyone the same pay. Equality must also involve the responsibilities given to people. That is the problem we have at the moment.

The government did not decide to create departments and expand job descriptions so that ministers of state would be ministers in their own right who deserved the same salary. No one can tell me that the Minister of Sport and the Minister of National Defence deserve the same salary because their responsibilities, at least as they stand now, are completely different. Just think about their budgets and how many public servants they have working for them. It is obvious that they are not the same at all.

Let us also remember that there are many qualified women that the Prime Minister could have appointed. He could have made different choices. For example, the member for Vancouver Centre has been here since 1993. She has been in the House longer than any other female MP. However, the Prime Minister chose to appoint other people. Those are his personal choices. The member for Kanata—Carleton has a great deal of experience as a member of the military. The Prime Minister could have appointed her to be the defence minister instead of the member for Vancouver South, but he did not.

Now the Prime Minister needs to take responsibility for his decisions. He is the one who appointed his cabinet as he saw fit and created the inequality in the duties and responsibilities entrusted to women. The solution is simple, and it is not a bill to change people's salaries, but rather a cabinet shuffle.

If the Prime Minister would like, we could name some ministers who were so-so, such as the Minister of National Defence who decided to take credit for the success of an operation. The Prime Minister could put a woman in that position. Only once in the history of Canada have we had a woman defence minister, namely, Kim Campbell, who was appointed to the position following the massacre in Rwanda because it looked better to have a woman managing such a file.

After thinking things through over the summer, the Prime Minister could decide to appoint a woman defence minister. In fact, if he were to do so, it would bring some balance to the six top posts in the Government of Canada. There would be three women and three men, so that would be an improvement. However, he could do even better and be even more ground-breaking by appointing a woman finance minister. That has never been done before. He could decide to do that.

Rather than trying to have its bill adopted by force, by using time allocation motions, he should simply use the good old method of a cabinet shuffle, reflect on the ways he wants to distribute additional tasks, and ensure that women have real leadership roles in the Canadian government, instead of trying to raise their salaries and minimize the mistake he made when he put together a cabinet that has equal representation solely in terms of numbers, and not in terms of responsibilities.

I hope that the Prime Minister will seriously consider my question, ask that Bill C-24 be withdrawn, and do what everyone would do: shuffle the cabinet to rebalance the distribution of responsibilities between the men and women in his cabinet.

[Salaries Act, June 8th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise because I am deeply disappointed in what I see in this bill.

When the new cabinet was appointed in 2015, I was disappointed to see that the position of minister responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec had been abolished. I was extremely disappointed because even though we did not always agree with having the hon. member for Roberval in that role, at least I knew that the people who talked to him about a plan could do so in French and be understood. Now we have a minister who barely speaks any French, who is from Ontario and does not understand the nuances of Quebec, and that is who people have to deal with. In other words, we have a minister in Ontario overseeing the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec, who lacks the understanding of the dynamics—

[Cannabis Act, June 6th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Justice why she thinks this is so urgent when we proposed a solution that would allow her to change the status quo. The solution is to decriminalize marijuana now so that we can take our time and carefully study the measures related to legalization.

If the minister would agree to decriminalize marijuana now rather than stubbornly insisting on passing the legislation to legalize it right away, we could take the time we need to find a common-sense way of legalizing marijuana. Instead, the minister is preventing members from expressing their views. There is a solution that would allow us to take our time and allow police officers to take action on cases of marijuana possession without clogging up our court system.

Why is she being so stubborn and imposing time allocation motions?

[Canada Labour Code, June 5th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, for example, flight attendants based in Quebec have a job that is considered to be at-risk for a pregnancy. However, they are given the choice to remain at work or to return home at their own expense. They are faced with an impossible choice.

That is a concrete example of women who could benefit. Those in Quebec could benefit from the provisions of the CSST and would receive benefits. Currently, they have nothing at all.

[Canada Labour Code, June 5th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, as federally regulated employees are covered under the federal system, amending the Canada Labour Code will not affect the provinces.

Furthermore, we must respect provincial law. We can reach an agreement for all women to receive the same level of protection when provincial law provides greater benefits, and as such, the level of coverage would not drop below a certain point. Thus, no federally regulated employees will lose anything if this bill is passed. The best case scenario is that some of these women will have greater benefits.