Irene Mathyssen

[Committees of the House, April 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is a very important question to consider and one for which I feel a certain level of embarrassment. I believe that we have decided we cannot live up to the obligations of the declaration because it means making an investment in the many outstanding land claims. It means making an investment in communities.

First nations communities are among the worst in the world in terms of sanitation, services, accessibility to education and health care. Many have described the reserves in northern Canada as being third world conditions. We know that many of these communities continue to suffer.

The community of Kasechewan, for example, is constantly in danger of flooding. The water is unfit to drink and the children are often sick. The community of Attawapiskat does not have a decent school. Despite the fact that the government has $14.5 billion to give away in tax cuts to wealthy corporations, it just cannot find $30 million to build a decent school for the first nations children in Attawapiskat.

I would say that it has to do with dollars and very little sense. The investment in housing, education, sanitation, the things we as a community know are essential are missing. I think that the government simply does not intend to make those investments.

[Committees of the House, April 7th, 2008]

Once again, Mr. Speaker, it is a very strange reality when one considers that Canada was one of the countries driving this agenda, that we have not lived up to our obligations to the first peoples of this country, the people who are so important to our sense of nationhood.

I find it quite interesting that the current government would say that Canada cannot be party to the declaration. We certainly were a party to the many treaties that we made with first nations. We were certainly there when we traded for all of the territories and pushed first nations onto reserves. We were certainly there when the residential schools were created, which were intended to assimilate and ultimately destroy first nations communities. We were party to all of that and it would seem to me that it is time to be party to something positive. The UN declaration would most certainly be that.

[Committees of the House, April 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, interestingly enough, the work that has gone into this agreement goes back to 1923. As my colleague pointed out, in the last 20 years Canada has played a very active part in that. In fact, Canada seemed to be one of the nations driving the agenda at the UN because of the recognition that first nations people had suffered because of a lack of opportunity. They had been marginalized and were most definitely suffering the effects of colonization.

Exactly why Canada would pull out at the last minute and lobby other nations to ignore this declaration is a mystery in some ways.

However, in response to the member's question about our reputation, I think it is a blight on our reputation. If we look at the last two years, in fact if we look at the last decade, we have moved backward constantly. We saw the cancellation of a national housing policy in 1996. There is the lack of a child care agreement. There have been all kinds of promises, all kinds of surpluses, but absolutely nothing in terms of legislating a national child care program. First nations people are among those who have suffered as a consequence of that.

In the Status of Women Canada department, there have actually been cuts and changes to the mandate and program. As a result, Canada's reputation as a partner in the world community, as a champion of human rights, has deteriorated. The nations of the world are looking with despair at what we are becoming.

[Committees of the House, April 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the third report of the Standing Committee on Status of Women, presented on Tuesday, February 5, 2008, be concurred in.

The motion reads:

That the government endorse the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 13 September 2007 and that Parliament and Government of Canada fully implement the standards contained therein.

After two decades of development, on September 13, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The resolution was adopted by a vote of 143 to 4.

It is disgraceful that Canada was one of the four nations that voted against this declaration and the Government of Canada was actively lobbying other countries to vote against this historic declaration.

Canada's position in refusing to support the declaration is contrary to the wishes of aboriginal organizations, human rights organizations and even government officials. A ministerial briefing note obtained by Amnesty International stated that:

Indian and Northern Affairs and Foreign Affairs Canada initially advised...that they were recommending that Canada support the adoption of the draft Declaration.

Canada's decision to oppose the declaration flies in the face of a long history of championing UN standards to elevate and promote human rights globally.

The declaration recognizes the rights of indigenous peoples to the lands, territories and natural resources that are critical to their way of life, a way of life that honours the earth and her resources.

The declaration also provides guidance measures needed to ensure the dignity, survival and well-being of some of the world's most impoverished and marginalized peoples.

The president of the Native Women's Association of Canada, Beverley Jacobs, states:

While the adoption of the declaration brings me great joy, Canada’s unprincipled decision to vote against the declaration demonstrates a lack of commitment, not only to indigenous peoples but to human rights more generally. This is not over. We will be calling on Canada to join us to implement this declaration immediately.

It is a reality that indigenous women confront double or even triple discrimination because they are indigenous, they are poor and they are marginalized.

In Canada, 38% of aboriginal women live in low income situations. The median income of aboriginal women was $12,300, about $5,000 less than the figure for non-aboriginal women.

According to Statistics Canada, aboriginal women represent less than 2% of the general population. However, they experience violence at a rate 3.5 times higher than non-aboriginal women. Close to 35% of aboriginal women have been the target of violence.

Aboriginal women live in remote communities and often have no access to women's shelters at all. These women are making the impossible choice between losing their home and living in fear with an abusive partner.

Young aboriginal women are five times more likely to die from violence than other women in Canada.

Aboriginal women continue to face barriers in attaining post-secondary education. Of aboriginal women aged 25 to 44 living off reserve who had started but had not completed a post-secondary education program, 34% reported family responsibilities as the reason they had not finished their post-secondary education, 21% reported financial reasons, 12% lost interest and motivation, and 8% found a job or had to work.

Highway 16 between Prince Rupert and Prince George, British Columbia has been renamed the Highway of Tears because of the more than 30 aboriginal women who have gone missing or have been found murdered along this stretch of highway.

Last spring, at Losha Native Family Healing Centre, a first nations agency in London, marked June 21 with a march and traditional ceremony of remembrance for the loss of our sisters across Canada. It was moving and gentle but it pointed out the despair of those left behind to mourn, those who will never know what happened to the women they loved.

Why are the Highway of Tears' victims mostly young aboriginal women? The answer is poverty.

In 2006 a symposium was held on the Highway of Tears. It produced numerous recommendations to prevent the unnecessary deaths and disappearances of young aboriginal women. I hope that the federal government will do everything possible to implement these recommendations. I hope it will finally listen, because aboriginal women and their children are more likely to experience violence and abuse in their lives than other Canadian women. Eight out of ten aboriginal women are abused.

Racism, the legacy of residential schools, and the lack of housing and educational opportunities work together to make aboriginal women more vulnerable. As a community we have an obligation to make sure violence against aboriginal women, against all women, ends.

The UN declaration is among the first international human rights instruments to explicitly provide for the adoption of measures to ensure that indigenous women and children enjoy protection and guarantees against all forms of violence. According to Foreign Policy in Focus, indigenous peoples have fought for centuries against genocide, displacement, colonization and forced assimilation. This violence has left indigenous communities among the poorest and most marginalized in the world, alienated from state policies and disenfranchised by national governments.

In the Americas, indigenous peoples have a life expectancy 10 to 20 years less than the general population. The same general pattern holds internationally. Because of gender discrimination, the pattern is most entrenched for indigenous women.

Today the human rights and very survival of indigenous peoples are increasingly threatened as states and corporations battle for control of the earth's dwindling supply of natural resources, many of which are located on first nations territories.

One key concern of indigenous women is gender based violence. For indigenous women violence does not only stem from gender discrimination and women's subordination within their families and communities, it also arises from attitudes and policies that violate collective indigenous rights. As Dr. Myrna Cunningham, an internationally recognized indigenous leader, said:

For Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous women, exercising our rights--both as Indigenous Peoples and as women--depends on securing legal recognition of our collective ancestral territories, which are the basis of our identities, our cultures, our economies, and our traditions.

That understanding of collective rights has enabled first nations women to create anti-violent strategies that address connections between issues as diverse as women's human rights, economic justice and climate change. These connections are reflected in indigenous women's organizations around the world, for instance, in a Kenyan village run by indigenous women, and in a community development organization on Nicaragua's North Atlantic coast.

Experts believe that crowded housing conditions aggravate the problem of physical and sexual abuse. No woman should have to make the impossible choice between losing her home and living with an abusive partner.

Housing conditions are a major contributing factor to a person's physical and mental health. Aboriginal people face serious housing shortages, as well as substandard quality in their housing.

In Canada 52% of aboriginal households fall below core housing needs. According to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation:

[This situation] is primarily the result of low incomes that stem from inequities experienced in the labour force and elsewhere by women and Aboriginal people in general. These inequities are amplified by low levels of schooling, and the inability of many to enter the labour force because of child-rearing responsibilities.

First nations housing and infrastructure is in crisis. When a comparison is made to the non-first nation demographic, first nations communities are at an extreme disadvantage. Adequate housing is considered a fundamental human right, one that is critical to the day to day well-being of first nations people. It is a key link to education, health, economic opportunities and employment outcomes.

Aboriginal women also experience poor health, have shorter life spans and are more likely to be disabled. According to the Saskatchewan Provincial Health Council, “health differences are reduced when economic and status differences between people, based on such things as culture, race, age, gender and disability are reduced”.

The poor health status of aboriginal women is linked to factors such as poverty, unemployment, lower social status, instability and violence in their families and communities, and inadequate housing and living conditions. Crowded housing conditions and lack of safe, clean water for drinking and washing aggravate the already poor health of aboriginal women.

The UN declaration is a fundamental international human rights instrument which outlines the minimum standards for the survival, dignity and well-being of indigenous peoples. Articles 21 and 22 explicitly mention indigenous women and the interconnectedness of our well-being, our children and our elders to be free from violence and discrimination.

Indigenous women at the international level have fought hard for these provisions. These provisions are not abstract. They reflect the collective realities that first nations face in our communities and how deeply we feel the actions or inactions by the state. We need the Government of Canada to commit to the declaration and the principles, rights and values it upholds.

The International Indigenous Women's Forum stated that the declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples will serve as a comprehensive international human rights instrument for all indigenous women, men and youth around the world. The adoption of the declaration will allow indigenous women and their families to infuse local human rights struggles with the power of international law, and their governments would be accountable to the international human rights standards.

Since 1923, first nations leaders have made attempts to represent their people at the international level. It is time for the Government of Canada to sign the UN declaration. This nation we are building has always championed human rights around the world. It is time to champion those same human rights at home.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I have two questions.

First, every time I hear the Liberals talking about putting down markers, I get this image in my mind of an agitated stray dog. What is the good of all these markers if policies that are unacceptable, like those in Bill C-50, go forward?

Second, budget 2008 makes much of these tax cuts. However, as the member for Hamilton Mountain has said, tax cuts are not all that the government talks about. I would like her to comment on this so-called tax largesse in relation to some specifics.

At the committee for status of women, we discovered that 68% of women were below the lowest income bracket and, therefore, a significant number of low income women do not benefit from personal income tax deductions. Furthermore, almost four of ten women will get nothing from income tax deductions because they just do not earn enough in the first place, and, of course, non-refundable tax cuts are equally useless to those four of ten Canadian women.

[Questions on the Order Paper, March 31st, 2008]

With respect to Canada's sixth and seventh reports on the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women: (a) what measures is the government taking past March 31, 2007 to fully implement (i) article 2, (ii) article 3, (iii) article 4, (iv) article 5, (v) article 6, (vi) article 7, (vii) article 8, (viii) article 9, (ix) article 10, (x) article 11, (xi) article 12, (xii) article 13, (xiii) article 14, (xiv) article 15, (xv) article 16, (xvi) article 17 of the Convention; and (b) what measures are being taken past March 31, 2007 to report for the period April 2006 to March 2010?

[Questions on the Order Paper, March 14th, 2008]

With regard to the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into certain events at the Prison for Women in Kingston: (a) how has the government provided action on the recommendations of the report; and (b) how will the government provide further action on the recommendations?

[Health Care, March 13th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, London area hospitals are facing a crisis that is placing the lives and health of my constituents of London—Fanshawe at risk. In emergency rooms, patients are waiting over 24 hours for a bed. Ambulances are idling outside hospitals for hours, waiting for patients to be admitted. Surgeries are being cancelled. It is a dire situation.

The federal government must step in immediately. The lives of Londoners are at stake. Government cutback after cutback has dismantled the community health supports that seniors and low income Canadians have relied on for preventative, home and long term care. Community supports, like the Women's Health Clinic in London, are essential because of the quality of care they provide and the reality of the doctor shortage. However, unfortunately, the Women's Health Clinic is another victim of government cutbacks.

When is the government going to start investing in long term care spaces, home care, preventative care and community health supports?

[Business of Supply, March 6th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond. I have a good memory too. I remember that in 1993 the Conservative government, under Mr. Mulroney, did remove funding from the national housing program. However, I also remember that in 1993 a Liberal government was elected. It had every opportunity to restore affordable housing, and it did not.

In fact, in 1996 the Liberals cut the program entirely. It was only due to the fact that a few provincial governments provided affordable housing that people survived at all. Among those survivors were women fleeing violence, fleeing the lack of affordability and trying to raise their kids.

I also recall that when the Liberal government was elected in 1993, it had a little red book. In that book it promised that there would be a national child care policy program in place after three consecutive surpluses. After eight consecutive surpluses, no legal child care program was in place.

[Business of Supply, March 6th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for New Westminster—Coquitlam.

I thank the House for providing me with this opportunity to speak about the serious issues facing women in Canada. I will also be providing solutions in the action plan for women created by New Democrats with the help of civil society, the women of labour, our first nations sisters, and women's organizations across the country.

New Democrats believe our action plan can and will make a difference in the lives of women, their families and our communities because no nation can hope to fully realize its potential, create a strong economy or support successful communities when half of its citizens can be silenced by poverty, violence or powerlessness.

My Liberal colleagues opposite have raised a number of issues in regard to the shameful treatment meted out to women across the country. I am happy to address the points of their motion, but first I believe it might be helpful to take a brief look at the last 30 years of women's advocacy, to have a better sense of what Canadian women and their organizations currently face.

In 1979 the United Nations signalled to the world the necessity of an international bill of rights for women and the absolute need for a plan of action. Hence, there was the creation of the UN convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, CEDAW.

Among CEDAW's 23 recommendations to improve women's rights around the world are requirements for signatory countries to ensure women's equal access to, and opportunities in, political and public life, education, reproductive health, employment, family law, child care and social security.

Canada signed CEDAW in 1980 and adopted its optional protocol in 2002. How have we done in the past 28 years? Unfortunately, the response by government to women's organizations working for women's equality has been less than stellar.

In 1995 the Liberal government dismantled the Canadian advisory council on the status of women and in subsequent years further eroded core funding for other women's organizations. It cut funds for women's shelters and transition houses, ended federal programs for affordable housing, cut funds for legal aid and disadvantaged women with punitive changes to employment insurance, and failed to bring forward proactive pay equity legislation and needed changes to maternity and parental leave benefits.

It does not end there. The current Conservative government changed the mandate of Status of Women Canada, cancelled the court challenges program, closed 12 regional offices, and removed lobbying, advocacy and research from the initiatives Status of Women Canada is willing to fund.

Both Liberal and Conservative governments have undermined women's equality. Both have attempted to still the voices of dissent.

One has to wonder what is so threatening about the work of these women's organizations that Liberal and Conservative governments felt compelled to close them down. Today's motion points out that the women of Canada deserve better. The reality is that Canadian women still face gender-based violence and poverty, and have trouble finding safe affordable housing and affordable child care.

The lack of proactive pay equity must also be added to that list. Interestingly enough, what the motion fails to address is the Liberal failure to remedy any and all of these concerns. The Liberal government had 13 years of majority government to promote stable economic security for women, 13 years of majority government in which to implement progressive pay equity legislation, and what did it do? It cut spending to Status of Women and failed to implement any of the 113 recommendations from the 2004 pay equity task force report.

The Liberals also failed to bring forward a workable national child care act. In fact, after years of promises and eight consecutive surpluses, all Canadian families were offered was a mishmash of insecure options.

One former Trudeau aide called the Liberal child care policy a death bed repentance. It was a death bed repentance dished up on the eve of an election that was sparked by the damning findings of the Gomery commission, and just in case anyone has forgotten, Judge Gomery found the Liberals culpable in the disappearance of $40 million taxpayer dollars.

Just for the sake of absolute accuracy, in the wake of the sponsorship scandal, the federal Liberal Prime Minister announced to Canadians that there would be an election in February 2006. Interestingly enough, that scandal ridden government did not survive a confidence vote and so the election took place one month earlier in January 2006.

Liberal government failures did not end with the lack of workable child care programs. Consider that the Liberals cancelled our national housing program, a program brought forward in 1971 by David Lewis and the NDP caucus. The national housing program provided the housing women so desperately needed if they hoped to escape poverty and violence.

Half of all Canadian women will experience criminal violence in either their homes, communities, workplaces or schools. Aboriginal women are five times more likely to die from violence than other Canadians and hundreds of aboriginal women have gone missing from their communities.

Clearly, we must redouble our efforts to achieve equality rights for women. To that end the federal NDP caucus launched the fairness for women action plan. It is a plan that not only reflects our long standing policies in support of women but also the workable achievements of NDP governments across Canada.

The solutions are obvious: stop funding the banks and big polluters with multibillion tax cuts and restore services to women. Our comprehensive action plan addresses six major areas of concern for Canadian women: fairness for women at work; better work-family balance; an end to violence against women; ensuring women's voices are heard; fairness for marginalized women; and equality for women around the globe.

Fairness for women at work means making equal pay for work of equal value the law. No excuses, no delays.

Increasing access to employment insurance because today only one in three unemployed women collects employment insurance benefits, down from 70% in 1990.

In the 39th Parliament the NDP introduced eight private members' bills to improve access to this vital income support and tabled a bill to reinstate the federal minimum wage, scrapped by the Liberals, and set it at $10 an hour.

New Democrats have introduced a private member's bill that would ensure universal child care through our national child care act that would establish a network of high quality, not for profit, licensed child care spaces. This child care program would be protected in law.

Better work-family balance also includes improved parental and maternity benefits.

New Democrats believe that violence is best addressed by ensuring access to justice for women such as reinstatement of the court challenges program, restoration of funding to legal aid, community-led prevention strategies to end violence that are initiated and directed by women, and opening more healing centres.

Status of Women Canada, SWC, must become an independent department with full funding and its own minister. An effective status of women department must be able to research, monitor and advocate for women's rights, support the women's groups who are promoting gender equality, and offer program-based and core funding. It must also include the 16 regional offices that once existed.

There must be a recognition that too many senior and disabled women live below the poverty line. Seniors must have decent pensions and women living with disabilities must be able to participate in our society.

The New Democratic Party is committed to women's equality. We are very proud of the action plan we have developed and we will continue to work for its implementation because equality is fundamental to our future as a nation. It is far more important than tax cuts for big banks and big polluters.

All that remains is the part of the Liberal motion that makes reference to those who are self-serving. I would say to Liberal Party members who are afraid to face the electorate, who are guilty of convenient amnesia, who are forgetting it was the people of Canada who voted them out, and who are incapable of summoning up the courage to live up to election promises by sitting on their hands and pandering to this vile Conservative budget, that this is most certainly self-serving.

I have an amendment to the Liberal motion. I move that the motion be amended by deleting all the words “that, therefore” and all the words after, and replace them with: “that this House acknowledge International Women's Week and call on the government to reinstate the court challenges program, restore funding to research and advocacy groups under women's program, reopen the 12 regional offices of Status of Women Canada, create a national housing program, provide resources for an early learning and child care program, implement proactive pay equity legislation, address violence against women, reform the employment insurance program to allow women better access to it, and recognize that women in Canada deserve fairness, affordability, equal opportunity, equal pay for work of equal value, a decent standard of living, and the freedom to live without fear”.