Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in this hallowed and historic chamber, the bastion of our democracy, to deliver my first address as the shadow minister for women and gender equality. I thank the people of Calgary Skyview for the confidence they have shown in sending me here. It is a great privilege, and I do not take their trust lightly. I love this place, and I love Canada. I love our values of freedom, democracy, equality, inclusiveness and tolerance.
My remarks today, however, are tinged with disappointment and apprehension. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen an erosion of Parliament and thus, our democracy. The pandemic has been a crisis the likes of which few, if any, of us have previously seen. This extraordinary circumstance called for an extraordinary response from our government to shepherd us through the crisis to recovery.
However, it did not require the abuse and undermining of our democracy. That is what we saw this summer. I speak from my personal experience on the status of women parliamentary committee. We knew that the pandemic was having a different and more dramatic effect on woman and girls. Last July I called, supported by all parties, for the return to work of the status of women committee. The disproportionate impact on women and girls was exacerbated by the government’s failure to apply a gender-based analysis lens to the CERB, a serious error that our committee was to study and make recommendations to address.
Our committee heard from witnesses who explained that many women were forced out of the workforce or their education programs to meet the increased workload and pressure from their domestic and care responsibilities. We heard that the risk of gender-based violence, domestic violence and human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation may be aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Based on the testimony, we were preparing recommendations to guide the government in addressing this inequity. However, we were shut down before we could finish the work. The work, which we hoped would help the government address the disproportionate stress and hardship faced by women during this crisis, was stopped cold. So far, the government has not addressed the issues identified by our work, and Canadian women and girls continue to face these disproportionate pressures and risks.
Before I go any further, I would like to advise that I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for Calgary Midnapore.
Why was our democratic process cut off? Why were Canadian women and girls left to fall through the cracks? It was simply so the Prime Minister could avoid the increasing scrutiny and demands for accountability that were the natural consequence of his flagrant ethical lapses in relation to the awarding of a contract to the WE Charity.
We lost a great Canadian this week. John Turner made many contributions to Canadian life, both in his public and private roles. One of his greatest contributions to our country was as a parliamentarian. He had a deep intellectual and emotional attachment to our democracy and our parliamentary system. He went back to its roots in the Magna Carta, which established that the ruler’s will is not arbitrary and that the privileges of Parliament had to be protected.
He lamented the erosion of the independence of the standing committees and their increasing irrelevance under the continual centralization of power in the Prime Minister’s Office. He once said, “What we have in this country didn’t happen by accident, democracy doesn’t happen by accident. Let’s fight for the restoration of the supremacy of Parliament in our democratic life.”
Why is our Parliament so important? It is not because any one of us happens to be here, or happens to sit on any committee, or serve in cabinet, or oppose the government. It is because we are sent here by the people. It is because, since 1215 under the parliamentary system, we do not allow ourselves to be governed arbitrarily without our consent.
It is not because my work was cut off that I am concerned. If it was not me, somebody else would be here doing the work. It is our job to work on behalf of the people of this country. We were doing that work on behalf of women and girls in this country, at a time when they were under attack and a time when they needed their government to acknowledge this reality and act to address it.
That work is too important to fall to the arbitrary whims of a Prime Minister feeling the well-deserved heat of his own actions. In not standing up to the Prime Minister and saying to him that this is not how our democratic system works, the members opposite turned their backs on the people who sent them to Ottawa as their representatives, not as the Prime Minister’s representatives in their ridings.
They certainly turned their backs on women and girls in Canada in the midst of a crisis. It is ironic to me that I deliver these remarks during Gender Equality Week, a week that reminds us of the work we have left to do to address gender equity gaps in our country. The government extols its work protecting vulnerable women from increased violence and exploitation in the midst of the pandemic, but we are hearing from front-line workers and services that they are overwhelmed and do not have sufficient resources.
I heard from the London Abused Women’s Centre, which has seen an increase in trafficking during COVID, particularly into pornography and webcams. Devastatingly, some of the girls are as young as 12 years of age. The London Abused Women's Centre, like other agencies across the country, has received no federal funding since its previous grant expired on March 31, 2020. The program has temporarily continued only because of the generosity of the people in London, Ontario.
The requests for proposals issued by WAGE and Public Safety are for significantly less funding, making it more difficult for trafficked and exploited women and girls to seek services and exit. This is shameful. Neither the throne speech nor the Prime Minister’s political posturing mentioned trafficking, despite the devastating impact it has on Canadian women and girls, their families and communities. Women and girls continue to suffer disproportionate hardship from the COVID-19 crisis.
I call on the government to mitigate the error of its decision to shut down Parliament this summer. I call for the important work of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women to be allowed to continue as soon as possible and include the previously heard testimony, so that we can complete the task that was arbitrarily halted at a time when women and girls in Canada needed us.
We are here for no other reason than it is the pleasure of our constituents that we be here. What a gift they have given us; what an opportunity to do something to improve the lives of Canadians. Our time here is too precious not to use it to the greatest of our ability and effort. The Prime Minister and his functionaries should never tell us when to do that work or when to stop that work. The people will tell us.
In the meantime, we are back. Let us get back to work. There is much to do.
