Denise Savoie

[Business of Supply, February 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have two very quick questions.

First, the member mentioned a number of steps that have been taken by his government. However, without an overall sense of where we are going and what our targets and timelines are, it is difficult to see if we will get there. I am wondering if he could tell us what the Conservative government's target is because it seems to agree that poverty must be eradicated. I am wondering what its target and timelines are to eradicate it.

Second, during the employability study I am sure the member remembers the person from the employers' association who mentioned that one of the greatest difficulties for women was the lack of child care in Alberta, for example, in comparison to Quebec which has a child care program. I am wondering if he could talk about how useful the government's program is in alleviating poverty for women who need to work.

[Business of Supply, February 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments.

We realize that the number of homeless people is growing in Canada. More people than ever before are turning to food banks. The most disadvantaged and the most vulnerable have been neglected.

Yet, I am puzzled by the Bloc Québécois position on this motion because even Quebec workers are in favour of it. It is a way to help workers now. Given the reality that Quebec is still part of this country, would it not be a way to help workers right now?

With regard to the potential independence or sovereignty of Quebec, we note that, in Europe, the situation of workers has improved. When a country improves its working conditions, workers in neighbouring countries also benefit. Therefore, even in the event of sovereignty, would conditions not be better if this minimum wage were implemented throughout Canada and if workers at least benefited from the $10 minimum wage?

[Questions on the Order Paper, February 14th, 2007]

What funds, grants, loans and loan guarantees has the government issued in the constituency of Victoria since January 23, 2006, including the 2006-2007 Budget and up to today, and, in each case where applicable: (a) the department or agency responsible; (b) the program under which the payment was made; (c) the names of the recipients, if they were groups or organizations; (d) the monetary value of the payment made; and (e) the percentage of program funding covered by the payment received?

[Committees of the House, February 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to explain it once again to the member. I guess she did not understand the first answer she received from my colleague.

Certainly there is strong support on this side of the House for helping Afghanistan rebuild its civil society. Where there have been differences of opinion is in the combat mission and in ferreting out the Taliban up north without having any kind of exit plan or strategy.

I would also suggest that if the Conservatives really are supportive of our forces, they should consider supporting our veterans first motion, which is proposing to extend the veterans independence program, helping widows or widowers after their--

[Committees of the House, February 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would certainly agree with the member. Having spent some time up north, I am familiar with some of the issues. I agree that the conditions he describes exacerbate the situation that women find themselves in.

I became particularly aware of that problem when the women's centres were closed in northern British Columbia, so I would certainly agree with the situation that he describes and support his suggestion.

[Committees of the House, February 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from London—Fanshawe for bringing these recommendations back to the House. This resonates especially strongly for me as I hear of the child care resources and referrals centre being cut and child care costs being passed on by the provincial governments because of the cancellation of the federal-provincial agreements.

Last year when these cuts were announced, we should have been celebrating Canada's ratification of the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women. Instead, we mourned the impact of the Conservative government's decisions regarding pay equity, regarding the cuts to the court challenges program, the cuts to child care, the cuts to Status of Women Canada, the cuts to literacy and so many other social issues, this, despite the UN's concern with Canada's compliance in these very areas.

In 2003 the UN made a number of recommendations that we should reassess the gender impact of anti-poverty measures and increase the effort to combat poverty among women; increase the funding for women's crisis centres and shelters; take additional measures to increase the representation of women in political and public life; expand affordable child care facilities--and we know what has happened to that; in fact they are diminishing--and accelerate the effort to eliminate discrimination against aboriginal women.

So much for modernizing and refocusing programs for women. All this talk on the Conservative side of the House about modernizing Status of Women Canada or modernizing women's programs brings to mind the image of the elephant in the chicken coop stomping around and shouting, “Each man for himself”, as he tramples on the chickens. All this talk of gender neutrality, gender neutral programs is a little far-fetched. The reality is the Conservatives have cut the programs.

I would like to speak specifically on the Conservatives' elimination of the mandate for advocacy. What does that mean exactly? The word “equality” was also removed from the funding mandate.

We know from the UN report there are many areas where women are still in a position of inequality. Child care has been mentioned often. We could talk about housing for single parent women who have unequal access. We could talk about political representation. Our party happens to have 41% women in our caucus. The Conservative government has 10.8%, and there is no indication of any program to improve that. There is a lot of work to be done around advocacy.

Last weekend I happened to be with young people at a conference to celebrate International Development Week. The focus was on promoting gender equity. One young woman spoke about a program that she was involved in, spearheading and promoting in Canada to have young women in Malawi become educated and escape the fate of poverty. It made me see the need to stress and highlight the importance that advocacy has had on their lives.

Even though Canada is certainly not Malawi, there are still huge inequities in Canada. Some of them have been pointed out, especially with respect to aboriginal women. In this House as we look at the sea of suits and ties, we can see that we have not by any means reached any level of equity.

We know that the largest number of single families are headed by women. We know that they are disproportionately poorer.

Status of Women Canada played a very key role in breaking down those obstacles and barriers, in working toward a more inclusive society by promoting gender equity and promoting the full participation of women in the economic, social, cultural and political life. This has been made more difficult by the Conservatives' decision to make cuts to Status of Women Canada.

Fortunately the young women who are following in our footsteps will not accept the kind of inequality the Conservatives would like to reserve for women.

I would like to read some statements made by a couple of young women at the VIDEA workshop and conference last week. One woman said, “We wish to achieve gender equity, including equal distribution of power and influence so women's contributions can be manifested worldwide. This can be achieved through education and understanding and politics”. Another woman said, “I dare to dream of a world building happy, healthy and hopeful communities through equal opportunities for all, listening to all voices, empowerment of all, encouragement and recognition of the individual and collective initiatives”.

Those are the words of the next generation. Those women will continue to oppose and speak against the kind of inequalities the Conservatives seem to want to perpetuate through their meanspirited cuts.

I would also like to come back to the word “equality” that was removed from the funding mandate, aboriginal women living in poverty, women generally working in non-standard jobs, the lack of child care spaces that would have allowed many single women struggling to make ends meet to access jobs.

I heard last week that in one case the fee of $900 for one child care space for a toddler was going to increase by at least $50 per month per child. Imagine paying that on a very modest salary. Imagine trying to make ends meet and really meet the needs of one's child. This is simply not realistic.

The Conservative facade of choice has simply been unmasked in British Columbia. Parents and child care providers have been meeting at town halls. They will meet again tomorrow in a rally to protest the lack of opportunity that the Conservative decision has led them to, the situation that women are now facing because of it.

Women will not accept that decision. They will continue to speak out against it, as we should continue to speak out against the cuts to Status of Women Canada. Without the support and the strong actions of organizations that are willing to speak out for the marginalized, for those who are struggling, it would have been very difficult to make the progress that we have made so far. It is because of women who have spoken out publicly that we have made progress. We are now in a situation where the government has taken a step backward. This must stop.

I ask all members to support these recommendations.

[Child Care, February 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it has been one year since the Conservative government abandoned the child care agreements, and parents in British Columbia are suffering the consequences.

The British Columbia Liberals are downloading the $533 million gap in federal support onto the backs of parents, who face average fee increases of at least $600 per year, per child for shrinking numbers of spaces.

Victoria's valuable child care resource and referral centre, having just celebrated the opening of its facility, now faces closure in the fall.

Tomorrow, citizens across British Columbia will unite in a province-wide rally to protest the cuts and to demand federal-provincial cooperation in a national child care system.

I urge the government to finally open its mind and give parents a real choice for quality public child care. The NDP's early learning and child care act is the perfect blueprint and the government is welcome to borrow it.

[Anti-terrorism Act, February 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am not a policeman and I do not claim to be. However, it seems clear, from reading section 495 of the Criminal Code, that a peace officer may act without warrant, there may be reasonable grounds. I do not think rule of law covers every possible detail. There is some latitude for police to act.

As was stated earlier, our intelligence agencies, with more work on the ground and more additional resources to them, can work effectively with the kind of problem he has suggested.

[Anti-terrorism Act, February 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, if I could ask for your indulgence, when I started my comments, I forgot to mention that I would be splitting my time with the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan.

On my colleague's question, it was clear at the time that all parliamentarians in western countries, in western democracies, faced a very difficult situation. It also seems that we have, in history, faced this kind of situation before and we continually repeat some of the mistakes that were made.

We live in a country for whom the rule of law is one of the most important pieces and fundamental principles of our country. There is no question that it was a difficult situation, but the reaction went beyond the bounds of what was necessary at the time.

[Anti-terrorism Act, February 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this motion to extend investigative hearings and preventive arrest under the sunset clause introduced in 2002.

I was not here at the time, but after listening to the little bit of debate held on the matter, these measures seem to me to be the product of an overreaction, which occurred in a moment of panic following the events of September 11, 2001.

It is the responsibility of parliamentarians to do everything in their power to protect Canadians, taking whatever effective measures are needed to do so.

Today, we must first ask ourselves if these measures are effective or necessary. It seems increasingly clear to me that they are neither effective nor necessary, nor even desirable. This bill does nothing to combat terrorism.

It must be fought in a different way. It has been suggested that it could be more useful to fight with coordinated intelligence services. Evidence has demonstrated it just was not present. One of the things we saw clearly at the time, for example, in the Air-India investigation was that our investigative and intelligence services were not only not coordinated, but they were working at cross purposes with each other.

We learned many things through this process that, among other things, coordinated services and intelligence services were necessary on the ground along with combined appropriate police work.

This kind of terrorist action must be fought internationally and nationally. Internationally, I might say, by charting a path for peace. Pre-emptive actions, such as these measures provide, are not only disruptive, but they have been shown, as in the case of the pre-emptive strikes in Iraq, to be unsuccessful in calming or mitigating terrorism. They have only served to inflame it.

Have these measures been effective or even necessary? We found out that they have not been successfully used. One attempt was made, but was unsuccessful and only served to further draw out a legal process. That, perhaps, is indicative of the lack of need.

As leading peace advocate Ursula Franklin has described, such measures are maybe effective, but effective to create a climate of fear, and that is surely not the basis on which our country is founded. We should be looking instead at terrorism from a wider perspective and reassess how it is that we can best protect our citizens without ceding ground to terrorists.

It has been suggested by some of my colleagues that better coordinated intelligence services, as I have already mentioned, would be the first step where we need to put more resources. We have also learned that what we really need is more people on the ground, on the street, doing traditional intelligence gathering. That may be something that we should be looking at instead of invoking these extraordinary measures that strike at the very core of our rights and freedoms in Canada.

It has been shown by a minority report at the time of the discussion that this legislation is perhaps not only not effective, but not necessary, that according to section 495 of the Criminal Code, peace officers may arrest without warrant a person who, on reasonable grounds, they believe is about to commit an indictable offence. The arrested person must then be brought before a judge, who may impose the same conditions as those imposable under the Anti-terrorism Act. Judges may even refuse bail if they believe that the person's release might jeopardize public safety.

We have clear indications that we have presently, within the Criminal Code provisions, effective actions in the case of suspected plots. I just want to continue from the minority report. It states that if police officers believe that a person is about to commit an act of terrorism, then they have knowledge of the plot, obviously.

They probably know, based on wiretap or other surveillance information, that an indictable offence is about to be committed. Therefore, they have proof of a plot or attempt, and need only lay a charge in order to arrest the person in question. It would therefore seem that the kinds of measures that are being asked for, one of which is an extension, are not necessary.

Considering the infringement on our rights and freedoms, I believe that there must be more than just reasonable grounds. We need to see conditions that do not exist at this time. The measures required today or that the government is asking us to adopt could in no way help to resolve the much more serious problem of terrorism.

It would be better to focus on finding a path towards peace. On an international scale, Canada should take steps in that direction, with its allies, including the United States. Instead of investing heavily in the war industry, as is currently the case, we should instead be thinking of finding ways to work together in order to discover the underlying causes of terrorism.

It seems clear that those who give way to terrorism are those who are also facing an injustice. If Canada were to perhaps look at the commitment that it has not yet fulfilled with respect to foreign aid, that would be one way of addressing some of these issues.

If we really want to give a sense of security to our citizens and to the residents of Canada, then we must do so by applying some of the methods that are already at our disposal according to the Criminal Code, looking beyond the traditional framework, and really considering some of the causes of terrorism and addressing some of the profound causes of injustice.