Irene Mathyssen

[The Budget, March 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I would be delighted to answer the question because I was, indeed, a member in Ontario from 1990 to 1995. The cuts that crippled Ontario began with the Conservative government of Mr. Mulroney and they continued under the Liberal government.

Those cuts to transfers caused an horrific kind of downloading that the people of Ontario simply could not tolerate. In one short period the cost of just the EI cuts caused the welfare budget to go from $1 billion a year to $6 billion a year.

We are talking about a number of issues. The member for Peterborough has forgotten that the infrastructure money that has been promised is not adequate. The number we are working with here is $153 billion.

[The Budget, March 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, what the government has done for women across the country is absolutely despicable and unacceptable. Status of Women Canada used to fund research advocacy and lobbying on behalf of women across the nation. Those groups could bring forward the information that government needed in order to have policy. They could advocate on behalf of those who could not advocate for themselves, such as disabled women, low income women and aboriginal women. All of that has been cut. Where on earth will the get the information they need for decent policy decisions?

Very clearly, there is no decent policy from the government.

[The Budget, March 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know how many times 33 divides into 153, but I would say that it is very clear, by the government's own admission, that it is simply not enough. Falling back on the excuse that previous governments neglected infrastructure is not cutting it either.

Municipalities all across this nation have made it very clear. We are facing the collapse of our infrastructure. They need $153 billion now. If it is not invested now, this is going to escalate in the future. The government has done very little to help. It is abandoning its obligations to towns, cities and communities across Canada.

[The Budget, March 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Burnaby--Douglas for sharing his time. I am most eager to participate in this budget debate on behalf of my constituents in London--Fanshawe.

I thought I would take a slightly different approach. Instead of just listing the sins and misguided budget decisions of the present and previous governments, and there are many, I want to offer some solutions, because these misguided decisions are hurting our communities.

I am speaking of decisions like no funding for affordable housing despite the homelessness crisis, a sham of a child care policy, and the absence of adequate funding for students and families caught in the trap of unmanageable student debt. There are no programs to end violence against women and children, and no concern for the struggles facing first nations, just a re-announcement of previous funding promises.

There is no long term support for cities and infrastructure in this budget despite our $153 billion infrastructure deficit. This budget offers a one-time $500 million, enough for one bridge somewhere, and a privatization scheme that will take infrastructure out of the control of the public.

There is nothing in this budget that effectively addresses the needs of farmers and farm families. I was speaking to farm activists just this past month at the Covent Garden Market. They are the people who feed our communities with safe, quality products. They are losing their farms. They are angry with the Conservative government and tired of the empty excuses they have heard year after year. They requested that I pass that message along.

There has also been a failure to put forward an anti-poverty strategy and no real even remotely adequate plan to address the manufacturing crisis and job losses. In London alone, 5,000 families have been affected by job loss. What will the government and the finance minister say to these families? Tepid recycled ideas and pocket change offer no hope.

There is nothing for veterans or seniors in this budget, just a contemptuous announcement on the veterans independence program that disqualifies 70% of veterans' widows. To add to the offensiveness of this treatment is the job opportunity the Minister of Finance has provided to seniors. They can forget about retirement. They can keep on working in those years when they have earned their rest, working because they cannot afford to retire.

I must also mention a glaring omission in budget 2008. Women are relegated to a very brief paragraph. We did not even make the index. As members know, women have been losing ground in their fight for equality. Programs have been cut and funding denied. The Conservative government continues to ignore the importance of funding women's equality. Status of Women, which is seriously underfunded, was not given any additional money, and funding to most equality-seeking groups is still prohibited.

In budget after budget, women have been waiting for measures to advance their equality. Women in Canada are still not safe in their homes or in public places. One in four Canadian women is a victim of sexual violence. Women still only earn 70% of what men make. Poverty is the reality for single, widowed or divorced women over 65 and more than 40% of unattached women under 65. This budget does not address their needs.

In short, all we have seen is a number of misguided budget policies that desperately need remedy. However, instead of just focusing exclusively on what has been done to Canadians, I would like to suggest a number of strategies the government could employ that would actually make a positive difference in the life of every person in this country, every man, woman and child who has the right to expect good leadership, economic fairness and security from government.

The unvarnished truth is that only a small and select group benefits from the policies we see entrenched in the budgets of former and current governments that are presented in the House. That select group is, of course, the banking and oil producing sector of the economy, the big banks and the big polluters.

I have a remedy for the government's unbalanced approach to the economy, because balance is what is needed if we are ever to address the needs of our communities and do the work that will secure the jobs, which in turn will secure the future of our families.

We know that the tax policies of the Conservatives are essentially the same as those of the Liberals, but I believe they can change. It is, after all, a new year, a time of hope and resolve to do better. New beginnings are possible. Surely it must be possible for the Conservatives to experience an epiphany, a conversion, and abandon this horrific budget and start afresh with a document that would truly serve Canadians.

One thing I would like to suggest is genuine investment in our cities, the engines of our economy. As we know, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities has issued a warning to the government. It is essentially the same warning issued to the previous Liberal government: there is a serious infrastructure deficit in Canada that will precipitate the collapse of Canada's municipal infrastructure.

It is a crisis, but there are remedies and the FCM has done the hard work to investigate and bring forward remedies. It presented a workable plan to the government to address the $123 billion infrastructure deficit. Of course, it is essential to use some of the federal surplus to reinvest in our cities instead of in corporate tax cuts to big banks and big polluters.

As members may recall, in my city of London there was a serious water main break in November of last year, which caused businesses to suffer a power outage, lost wages and a huge million-dollar cleanup, all financed by municipal taxpayers. Since the November break, there have been four more serious water main breaches. This is unacceptable, particularly when the FCM has shared practical solutions with government.

What the FCM does not need are one-time, inadequate offerings like what has been proposed for Vancouver, Montreal and Peterborough. Measures such as sharing an additional one cent of the gas tax would certainly facilitate a real solution.

Also missing from this budget and previous budgets is help for women and their families. We have heard in the Standing Committee on the Status of Women that the tax measures of the government do not help lower- and middle-income families. Non-refundable tax credits are of absolutely no value to families without a taxable income.

Single parents, both male and female, have disproportionately low incomes and are left out of the so-called tax largesse of this government. People with disabilities, older Canadians and impoverished veterans are all overlooked by inaccessible tax credits. In fact, the only groups to truly benefit from budget 2008 are profitable corporations and the top one-fifth of high income earners.

If this government truly wished to make a difference for Canadians, it would address the job crisis. In Ontario, working families are struggling in the grip of a manufacturing jobs crisis. Between November 2002 and now, Canada lost more than 300,000 manufacturing jobs. In London, we lost good jobs at Siemens, Beta Brands, Vytek and in the auto sector. The pitiful efforts in this budget will not help them.

Manufacturing jobs pay 28% higher wages than the average and come with decent pension and benefit packages. Working families are losing livelihoods and the government has no real long term strategies for the automotive or manufacturing sector, no long term R and D or skills training strategy, and no blueprint to seize the massive opportunities of the 21st century green economy.

Laid-off workers lucky enough to find another job suffer an average decline of 25% in annual earnings. That is $10,000 each year and it is devastating. All the tax cuts to big oil and big banks will not help the workers at Siemens, Vytek or Beta Brands or their families.

New Democrats know it is essential to take a different approach and build on the initiatives we have put forward in this House, such as: eliminating ATM fees; extending veterans' benefits through our veterans first motion; adopting the NDP seniors charter; bringing forward a national prescription drug benefit program; reinstating the federal minimum wage at $10 an hour; reducing credit card interest rates; adopting the solutions in our fairness for women action plan; passing the NDP leader's environmental bill; passing our post-secondary education act to reduce tuition fees and provide new and stable federal funding for needs based grants for college and university students; and passing our child care act.

Farm families, first nations, seniors, cities, the environment, veterans, students, young families, workers, the disabled and victims of violence all should have been included in this budget. Sadly, they have been abandoned.

The FCM, civil society, community organizations, my NDP colleagues and I have offered some workable solutions. The NDP has many more real solutions to move this country ahead. It is time for these solutions. It is time.

[Unborn Victims of Crime Act, March 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-484 proposes changes to the Criminal Code that will have no real positive effect, but rather will potentially jeopardize a woman's right to choose.

This proposed private member's bill would have two charges laid against a person who kills a pregnant woman. This would in effect give legal rights to a fetus and change the definition of when a fetus becomes a person under the law. Currently a fetus is not considered a person until actual live birth.

While I will not argue that murdering a pregnant woman is particularly abhorrent, this bill will in the end do more harm than good for women's rights in Canada.

This House has heard from some who may contend that this bill has nothing to do with abortion and is just about ensuring that someone who murders a pregnant woman will pay doubly for his or her crime. However, this bill is the thin edge of the wedge as it will change the definition of when a fetus becomes a person.

This change will have an effect on the legal status of abortions in Canada. Canadians, Parliament, the courts and the Senate all made a determination on this issue and have supported a woman's right to choose. This is not something that needs to be opened to debate again.

Canadian women fought long and hard for the right to safe, legal abortions in Canada. Women have been forced to put their private lives under scrutiny in the courts in the fight for the right to choose. If we take away that right, women in desperate situations will have to take desperate measures, like a young woman who in 1989 bled to death after attempting to perform an abortion on herself. This tragedy was the result of fear and despair and happened while the federal government debated making non-emergency abortions illegal.

I am profoundly concerned that Bill C-484 is nothing but a thinly veiled attempt to make abortions illegal in Canada. I am extremely disappointed that the member would use tragic murders of young women to push an anti-abortion agenda.

Bill C-484 calls into question a judge's ability to take mitigating circumstances into account. Courts already take aggravating circumstances into account when deciding on sentences for crimes and would most certainly consider injury to or the death of an unborn child to be a serious aggravating circumstance.

Furthermore, two separate offences would not necessarily mean more jail time. In Canada, unlike the United States, multiple sentences are often served concurrently. I bring up our neighbour to the south for a reason. As many of my colleagues well know, this type of bill has been passed in several U.S. states. This bill does have some impact there because jail sentences are often served consecutively, thus actually increasing time served. I would also like to note that it is also the same country where there is an active attempt to ban access to abortions for American women at the state and federal levels. The supporters of this type of bill are the very same people actively working to ban abortions.

The evidence is clear. To date, courts across Canada have blocked provincial attempts to substantially regulate the issue of abortion, finding that the pith and substance of such attempts is actually an attempt to recriminalize abortion through the back door.

Bill C-484 essentially represents an indirect recognition of an unborn child as a person with legal status. Such an initiative could have significant ramifications in a number of different areas of law and opens a Pandora's box in the abortion debate.

I believe it is essential to this debate to discuss an area of concern that the Conservative government has failed to address, and that is, of course, violence against women. Homicide is a leading killer of pregnant women and it is well known that violence against women increases during pregnancy.

What the government needs to address is better measures to protect women in general and pregnant women in particular from domestic violence. A fetal homicide law would completely sidestep the issue of domestic abuse and do nothing to protect pregnant women from violence before it happens. It would also do nothing to protect women who are abused shortly after giving birth.

Before we start talking about laws to protect fetuses, the government has an obligation to make sure that women's rights are protected first by addressing the systemic problem of domestic violence. If a woman is safe, her unborn child is safe.

In Canada, women have guaranteed rights and equality under our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Persons do not gain legal status and rights in our society until after a live birth, as per the Criminal Code. Also, the Supreme Court has ruled that a woman and her fetus are considered physically one person under the law, as in Dobson v. Dobson.

If we give legal rights to a fetus we must automatically remove some rights from women, because it is impossible for two beings occupying the same body to enjoy full rights. If we try to balance rights, it means the rights of one or both parties must be compromised, resulting in a loss of rights. Legally speaking, it would be very difficult to justify compromising women's established rights in favour of the theoretical rights of the fetus.

It is also of concern that Bill C-484 essentially contradicts the election promises of the Conservative Party. During the last election, its platform stated, “A Conservative government will not initiate or support any legislation to regulate abortion”.

Bill C-484 does just that. It initiates legislation that will effectively regulate abortion in Canada by changing the definition of the legal status of a fetus. It opens the door to making abortion illegal in Canada.

If the government is truly concerned about women and their children, it will abandon its recent budget and reverse its unacceptable policies, policies that have removed equality from the mandate of the women's program, cancelled the court challenges program, closed 12 regional offices of Status of Women Canada, and ended research, lobbying and advocacy on behalf of women in a dismal budget document that failed to reintroduce a national housing strategy or affordable decent housing.

Let us imagine what such a housing policy would do for these women fleeing violence, including those carrying unborn children. The government could also introduce a national child care program and needed changes to maternity and parental leave. It could have provided adequate funding for legal aid, restored the court challenges program, helped women with disabilities, implemented proactive pay equity and invested in programs that would address violence against women.

It could do all these things, but that would require a real commitment to women, children and families. Instead, the Conservatives have chosen to promote Bill C-484.

A woman's right to choose was hard fought for. It would be detrimental to Canadian women and an international embarrassment to remove that right. The Conservatives are not standing up for Canadian women by tabling such bills. It is indeed time that the government remembered its election pledge.

I hope all thoughtful members of this House will respect a woman's right to choose and respect the fact that women need safety, not this kind of indirect attack.

[The Budget, February 27th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday's budget continues the Harper agenda that fails women. Women in Canada are falling further and further behind with each consecutive Conservative budget.

When will the government address the concerns of 52% of the population?

Ordinary women do not benefit from this new budget. Corporations will pay less for government services, while individual families will pick up the costs. Individuals will be required to pay more through personal income taxes, while corporations pay less.

These extra taxes are a burden that many families cannot afford, especially the 43% of single mothers who live below the poverty level.

The government should have invested in women but chose to ignore them. Where are the child care spaces? Where is the EI reform? Where is the proactive pay equity legislation? Where is the affordable housing? Where is the equality?

Women deserve better.

[Petitions, February 25th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition that is part of a response from thousands of Canadians to the Security and Prosperity Partnership.

The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to stop further implementation of the SPP with the United States and Mexico until there is a democratic mandate from the people of Canada and parliamentary oversight and consideration of the profound consequences the SPP will have on Canada's sovereignty and our ability to adopt autonomous and sustainable economic, social and environmental policies.

The petitioners also urge the Government of Canada to conduct a transparent and accountable public debate of the SPP process, with meaningful public consultations with civil society, a full legislative review, including the work, recommendations and reports of all the SPP working groups, and a full debate and vote in Parliament.

[Pay Equity Task Force Recommendations Act, February 15th, 2008]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-507, An Act to implement the recommendations of the Pay Equity Task Force.

Mr. Speaker, the right to pay equity is protected by the Human Rights Act and charter, however, current complaints-based pay equity laws do not work. It takes years for these complaints to be addressed. Canada needs proactive pay equity legislation to ensure that all employees are receiving equal pay for work of equal value.

In 2004 the pay equity task force called current pay equity legislation woefully inadequate, recommended a new law, and provided a detailed guide for proactive pay equity. My bill would use this guide to make proactive pay equity the law.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Community Development Trust, February 15th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to tackling the manufacturing job crisis, the Conservatives cannot be trusted.

Well-paid jobs with decent pensions and benefit packages are disappearing and it is hurting Canada's economy and our communities. In London and southwestern Ontario, working families and our communities have been hit hard. In the last few months, London has lost 5,000 good jobs from places like Siemens, Beta Brands and Vytek and across the auto sector.

The government aid package is clearly not enough and the money is not flowing fast enough.

Will the government speed up the process so that working families can get the help they need immediately?

[Canadian Breast Cancer Network, February 15th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Breast Cancer Network is a survivor directed national network of organizations and individuals.

Sadly, over 5,000 Canadian families will lose a loved one this year due to breast cancer, while 22,000 more women will be diagnosed.

We as a country have to do everything we can and use all the tools at our disposal to make cancer history.

While I welcome the government's change of heart to reverse its decision in regard to the cuts by the current government and the previous government to the Canadian Breast Cancer Network, I and the women affected by breast cancer across this country must have a guarantee that the Canadian Breast Cancer Network will have cash in hand on April 1.

This organization has faced cutback after cutback and cannot wait at the government's pleasure for funding that was needed yesterday to help women and their families affected by breast cancer.