Madam Speaker, I am honoured to rise in the House to speak on the 50th anniversary of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, not just as the MP for Calgary Skyview or the Conservative shadow minister for women and gender equality, but as a woman, who, until 1920, could not be elected to this House.
The royal commission was established in 1967 with a mandate to inquire into and report on the status of women in Canada and to make recommendations to the federal government to ensure equality for women in all aspects of society. It received over 468 briefs and over 1,000 letters and testimonies. The extensive amount of evidence and engagement from Canadian women highlighted the widespread problems women faced across Canada.
On December 7, 1970, the commission tabled its report in Parliament with 167 recommendations to the federal government on issues such as pay equity, maternity leave, family law reform, higher education and access to higher-paying jobs. The commissioning and tabling of this report in Parliament gave many women from coast to coast to coast a political voice and by the 1980s, with many of its recommendations implemented, women’s lives had been greatly enriched.
I am proud to be a part of the Conservative caucus that has strived for and continues to see women breaking glass ceilings. It was the Conservative Party of Canada that elected the first woman to be the leader of a political party, who later became Canada’s first female prime minister, the Right Hon. Kim Campbell.
It was the Conservative former interim leader, the Hon. Rona Ambrose, the minister of the status of women, who started the campaign to establish the International Day of the Girl Child, a day where we publicly remind everyone that there are girls and women around the world who still do not have a voice, who do not have rights or access to education and who are treated as property. The International Day of the Girl Child is a day where we get to use our voice as women to be their voice, like the women generations before were the voice for us today.
In the Conservative caucus, we have a lot of firsts. On the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, the Conservative women have all accomplished firsts. The hon. member for Richmond Centre was the first Chinese Canadian woman to be appointed to serve in cabinet, a position where she was able to advocate for seniors, especially the views and opinions of senior women.
The member for Sarnia—Lambton is the first woman to be elected to the House with a degree in engineering, something she has in common with Elsie MacGill, who sat on the royal commission. The member for Port Moody—Coquitlam is the first Korean-born member elected to the chamber and I am the first Sikh woman elected from Alberta. This is only possible because of the hard work, social cause and peaceful protests that generations before us stood for.
Without them, we would not have been able to attend higher education, have a bank account in our own name, not be discriminated against in job postings based on sex or marriage, access maternity leave, have the right to vote or be elected to the House of Commons, just to name a few. While we are grateful for the royal commission, the hard work put in by the members, the evidence submitted by Canadians from across this great country and the recommendations to the government, many of which, to varying degrees, have been acted on, there is still much more work that needs to be done, particularly when it comes to gender-based violence, an issue that is very dear to my heart.
Just last week in this chamber, we reminded ourselves of the heinous crime committed in Quebec just 20 years after this report was tabled. Fourteen women with dreams and their whole lives ahead of them were murdered at École Polytechnique in 1989 solely because they were women attending school. This should have never happened then and it should never happen again.
This pandemic has highlighted many challenges that women still face today. Throughout this pandemic we have heard organizations from across the country tell us that calls to women’s shelters have increased and they have had to send women away because they do not have the funds needed to help them. It is truly heartbreaking that women have to remain in their homes with their abusers because we cannot help them. They are living in personal prisons.
Organizations have been calling on the government to create and establish a national action plan to address gender-based violence, yet all we seem to get from this government is empty promises. The Liberals' platform in 2019 said they would develop an action plan to address gender-based violence, yet still nothing. Women are not looking for a document with catchy phrases. They are looking for concrete action. Women need help now, not two, five or 10 years from now.
The Royal Commission on the Status of Women was undeniably a catalyst for social change. It united Canadians across this great country and gave women a political voice that they did not have before. All we have to do is look around this chamber and see the women here from all parties. We are strong advocates for what we believe in and for women in this country. I am proud to be a part of this group as we lend our voices to work towards a more equal Canada.
I am looking forward to future generations looking back and being proud of our accomplishments and being able to build upon them. The work to build an equal Canada is never really complete. Laying the path for gender equality, we can help the next generation and the generations after that. Let us continue building the path towards a Canada that our daughters, nieces and sisters can be proud of.
