Hedy Fry

[International Women's Week, March 8th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, today is International Women's Day. It is a day when men and women around the world join together to mark the achievements of women and the struggles of women, to witness the tragedy of the many women who daily suffer poverty and violence silently and powerlessly. However, it is also a day to celebrate the courage of the world's women, to celebrate the gains they have made toward equality and to pledge support to them as they continue the inexorable march toward economic and social justice.

Today we applaud the remarkable Canadians who have made outstanding contributions toward that struggle for equality. I want to acknowledge one such remarkable individual, Senator Florence Bird, former head of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada, journalist and activist.

Later today I will attend the first presentation of the annual Florence Bird award. This award honours the work of a communicator who has succeeded in sensitizing the public to the fact that women's rights are not special interest rights or marginal rights but basic human rights.

Through the efforts of Canadians like Senator Bird and today's award winner Karen Levine, executive producer of CBC Radio's "As it Happens", Canada has earned a reputation for excellence in advancing women's equality. Initiatives such as the Florence Bird award will ensure the important role of public awareness continues. However, public awareness alone will not ensure women's equality. It is only one part of many initiatives that will finally achieve our objective.

Our government will continue to do its part to promote equality, for it is a basic Canadian value. It is part of our national identity as well as a source of pride.

This government believes each and every individual group and community in Canada must be treated equally and with respect. As Secretary of State for the Status of Women, I have made the economic equality of women a priority. Women are today among the poorest in our society in Canada and in the world. Poverty of women has a negative impact on the well-being of children, on the economic viability of a nation and on its social structures.

Economic independence is the first step in eradicating poverty, violence and low health status. If women were economically independent, they would be able to create better lives for themselves and their families. They would be better able to contribute to the economy and to the life of a nation and the benefits would accrue to all of us. In the budget we put in place a number of measures that will improve the economic status of women in all stages of their lives: as mothers, workers, business owners, students and as seniors.

The budget demonstrates our commitment to the federal plan for gender equality which outlines our specific commitment to advance women's equality through the process of gender based analysis. Gender based analysis means that every new policy program and law must be critiqued to see whether it creates a disadvantage to men or women.

Women and men in general experience life differently, economically, socially and physiologically. We need public policy that recognizes those differences. The child support package does exactly that. It recognizes that the majority of custodial parents are women and that many children are poor because their mothers are poor. It will make child support predictable, consistent and fairer for all children and their parents.

The seniors benefit package has made adjustments not only to ensure that low and modest income seniors are better supported but it also recognizes through the splitting of cheques to couples that family income is not always shared equally.

I cannot think of a more appropriate time to announce the child support package and the seniors benefit than during International Women's Week. These initiatives illustrate how good public policy must take a closer look at the reality of men's and women's lives if it wishes to be relevant and effective.

Yet the principle of gender analysis should not be limited to government policy alone. It should be extended to the judicial system, education and health services. It should be a starting point for decision making throughout society, for each one of us has a role to play in creating equality, in building the Canada of tomorrow, a Canada of prosperity, security and hope, a Canada we will be proud to bequeath to our sons and especially to our daughters, a Canada that will continue to stand as a model to the world.

Today on International Women's Day we owe as much to the world's women, their husbands and their children.

[Status Of Women, March 8th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for a very good question on a very important day.

The cornerstone of the government's initiatives for equality among women is gender analysis. I said earlier how that empowers and will increase women's economic independence, will look at their social life and will look at their physical well-being.

We talked earlier about some of the initiatives we have taken with regard to child support, with regard to the WIS, with regard to the Canada student loan programs, with regard to employment insurance. By simply applying gender analysis we have looked at hours of work instead of weeks of work because we know so many women work hours in terms of part time jobs and need to get benefits.

We have talked about empowering education and looking at the issues that will help young women get an education. We have talked about the court challenges program and we have done it. We have looked at violence against women. We have looked at female genital mutilation. We have the Firearms Control Act, which will decrease violence against women. We have created centres of excellence for health. I could go on and on.

[Child Care, March 8th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member asked a question that is extremely important. Everything she quoted in the red book is true; it was true then and it is true today.

The Minister of Human Resources Development is looking at how we can continue to keep that promise and implement it. We have to keep the process going. We have to discuss innovative ways we can accomplish this. If we cannot do it with provinces we still have a commitment to do it.

[Status Of Women, March 8th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, very important in terms of women's equality is that the government has agreed to put forward a plan for gender analysis that will cross every single government department.

Gender analysis means that every time a policy, a law or an initiative is taken there will be a lens to look at that policy, law or initiative to see how it could disadvantage women or men. That kind of thing has led to changes in the employment insurance bill and to all of the initiatives we have seen in the budget.

[Status Of Women, March 8th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the government in its budget has stressed very much the economic independence of women.

We have talked about initiatives in tax credits. We have talked about changing the child support program. We have taken money to be gained out of that program and placed it into ways to eliminate poverty. We have looked at how we can empower single women to go to school and to get training through tax initiatives. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

[Status Of Women, March 8th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is absolutely right. The key to women's equality lies in their economic independence. The government recognizes that fully.

When one looks at the initiatives we have taken in the past and looks even closer now at the initiative we took during this budget, we looked at women at every stage of their lives in order to ensure their economic independence.

When we look at the education changes we made in terms of increasing the eligibility for day care and the tax credits for going to school, we are ensuring single women get the same break as women who live in families. The child support of the WIS will be doubled in the next two years.

In the seniors package we are ensuring that 90 per cent of women, whether they live singly or in couples, will benefit from this new seniors benefit. We are talking about the economic independence of women.

[Reform Party, December 14th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have a confession. I have a 25-year habit I cannot kick, thinking like a physician.

I have observed the Reform Party with clinical interest over the last two years. My diagnosis: collective schizophrenia evidenced by irrational behaviour, delusions of grandeur and loss of touch with reality.

Observe a party that emoted over the 14 women gunned down in Montreal yet which opposes gun control; a party that claims to support universal medicare but wants a two tier U.S. style system; a party that said it supports Canadian unity but was absent at the Montreal rally and stands unanimously with the Bloc on every issue of Canadian unity.

It called for a B.C. veto and then sided with the separatists against any region's getting a veto; a party whose leader so desperately wants to be Prime Minister, a position denied him by the people of Canada in the last election, that he committed the ultimate irrationality of asking the crown to remove a democratically elected Prime Minister from office.

Actually this is not schizophrenia, it is coldly calculated political opportunism; a party willing to sacrifice Canada's future to advance its own political position.

As Ebenezer Scrooge would say: "Bah, humbug".

[Petitions, December 13th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I have another petition to present from the people of British Columbia.

The petitioners respectfully call upon Parliament to enact legislation requiring that all containers of alcohol sold in Canada bear warning labels, alerting consumers of the attendant risks of alcohol consumption.

[Petitions, December 13th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I rise to present a petition on behalf of the residents of the city of Vancouver, B.C.

They call upon Parliament to endorse the Bessborough Armoury Community Services project for the use of underused defence institutions in the city of Vancouver, and to initiate appropriate action to designate the armoury facility for shared use and make it accessible to the residents of the city of Vancouver for the community services proposed.

[Protection Of Personal Information Obtained By Certain Corporations Act, December 12th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that the hon. member asked this question. As she said before, medicare is a defining value of Canadians. Eight-nine per cent of Canadians support medicare. All the ministers of health in every province support medicare, with the exception of Alberta.

Medicare is unique to this country because it is based on clinical need and not on the size of your wallet. It is a Liberal value. Medicare was brought in by a Liberal prime minister. A Liberal minister of health, Monique Bégin, brought in the Canada Health Act which defined the five principles and set a series of limits on how they are used.

One of the important things about medicare is that the government, being a Liberal government, is committed to medicare. We are committed to a predictable funding of medicare in the new Canada health and social transfer. We are committed to working with provinces to ensure that we find innovation and creativity in dealing with some of the pressures that are now facing medicare.

We will work in a consistent, cohesive and coherent manner to find all of the answers within the Canada Health Act.

I want the hon. member to know that this government is the first since the enactment of the Canada Health Act that actually has taken non-refundable deductions from provinces: British Columbia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and finally, Alberta.

We have a concern about the growth of two-tier medicine. User fees are not on for this government. The program is based on clinical need. If we are going to continue to make medicare important, we are going to have to look at issues such as evidence based medicine such as moving from prevention, from life style based diseases and-