Johanne Deschamps

[Business of Supply, March 23rd, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I would like to say to my dear colleague and friend that the answer is clear. The Conservatives' right-wing, archaic ideology shackles women to practices from 60 years ago or more, and permeates everything they propose.

They oppose abortion and same sex marriage. They are influenced by extremely religious right-wing groups. Of course, this permeates everything they propose. They even modify their policies to be able to include this ideology—

[Business of Supply, March 23rd, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I would like to answer my colleague, but I am having trouble grasping the thrust of his question.

He mentioned that his government will soon attain the millennium development goal of 0.7%. I do not know where he read that or how he came up with that figure. The data are very conclusive: we are lagging far behind and are nowhere near attaining these goals. And we should not expect to attain them by 2015.

I do not understand how we can make maternal and child health a priority if we do not provide women with the basic tools to prevent a pregnancy when their health makes it impossible for them to have a child. In war-torn countries, women and 12- and 13-year-old girls who have been raped and mutilated must have access to safe abortions. If these children are born, there will be two victims: a child who will likely be neglected and a mother who is going to suffer the consequences for the rest of her life.

It is my belief that, in order to help women, we must intervene at the beginning, when they can make a choice. They must be given tools and provided with access to contraception and trained staff to provide impartial guidance so that they, as women, have the right to choose—

[Business of Supply, March 23rd, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comment and question.

We are no longer surprised that every throne speech and every budget the Conservatives have presented since taking office has a hidden agenda.

The government is committed to making maternal and child health a priority at the next G8 summit. But behind this commitment we still find anti-abortion and anti-contraception lobby groups, which are pressuring the Conservative government.

On the one hand, the government is making a commitment; but, on the other hand, it does not want to displease these lobby groups, its faithful friends.

[Business of Supply, March 23rd, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his question. In fact, the answer is more or less in the question.

There is some inconsistency between what the government says and what it does. We see that it is preparing to freeze its aid starting next year and maintain it at $5.1 billion. It will thereby reduce its debt at the expense of the least fortunate.

The message is loud and clear that donor countries have to increase their aid. There is a great need. Canada made commitments just last year, in L'Aquila, Italy. How can anyone expect the government to keep its promises when we see it going backwards, limiting, freezing and cutting services and programs to which Canadian and Quebec women once had access, but do not any more?

The question is: how can Canada, the host country of the G8 in June, have any credibility or take a leadership role in this file? We wonder.

[Business of Supply, March 23rd, 2010]

Madam Speaker, just a few days ago, on March 8, we celebrated International Women's Day. It was an opportunity for us to advocate for equality, to assess the situation and the status of women in our society, and to realize the importance of protecting the gains we have made. But despite all of that, women still have many battles to fight. One of these battles is maternal health, which is being debated today in the House.

It is unthinkable that in 2010, hundreds of thousands of girls and women still do not have access to adequate health care to make childbirth, which is supposed to be the most incredible experience of their lives, a positive experience. For many girls and women, this experience is filled with dread, fear and suffering.

In 2000, leaders from around the world committed to making maternal health one of the eight millennium development goals. The goal is to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by three quarters by 2015 and to achieve universal access to reproductive health care.

Unfortunately, in 2010, this goal is far from being achieved. According to the UN Millennium Development Goals Report 2009, every year, 536,000 women and girls die as a result of complications during pregnancy, childbirth or the six weeks following delivery.

The vast majority of maternal deaths are preventable. According to Ann Veneman, the Executive Director of UNICEF, 80% of maternal deaths could be prevented if women had access to essential maternity and basic health care services.

This is why the Bloc Québécois supports the Liberal motion. The Bloc Québécois will support any initiative that aims to effectively fight this problem, just as it will condemn and fight any initiative that could jeopardize the health of women and children, regardless of where they live.

The Bloc Québécois is in favour of a maternal and child health initiative that would include family planning, as well as sexual and reproductive health, including contraception.

The Bloc Québécois supports this motion, but it is worried about the Conservatives' ideological leanings on women's rights, and it once again decries the fact that the House must speak out against the regressive policies of this insensitive government.

The Bloc Québécois believes that all women, from all walks of life, are entitled to a continuum of health care that includes all services, since they are all important and interconnected. Furthermore, the factors that lead to maternal mortality and the consequences related to pregnancy and childbirth can vary from one region to the next and from one country to the next.

It is crucial that women have access to a complete range of sexual and reproductive health services as well as family planning services. A continuum of care should include access to trained, qualified health personnel; to adequate health care facilities; to contraception, medication and emergency care; to skilled care during pregnancy and labour; and to ad hoc services after an abortion, as well as the chance to have an abortion under safe conditions where abortion is legal.

With this range of services, the international community could provide the necessary tools to countries looking to reduce maternal mortality.

More than 80% of maternal deaths in the world are directly linked to five main causes: hemorrhage, infections, abortions performed under dangerous conditions, difficult labour that requires medical intervention and pre-eclampsia.

Last week we saw that there are contradictions galore within the Conservative government in terms of what should be included in the maternal health strategy that the government intends to present to the other G8 leaders.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs told committee members that his party's policy had nothing whatsoever to do with family planning, but two days after this statement the Prime Minister and the Minister of International Cooperation said the exact opposite during question period.

The Prime Minister said that contraception would be part of the scenario that would be studied: “We are not closing the door on any option, including contraception. However, we do not wish to debate abortion in this place or elsewhere.”

The abortion debate will not be re-opened. In Quebec and in Canada, legislation has been put in place that allows women to put an end to a pregnancy. This is a very important gain for women and it is not being questioned, except by our right-leaning government, of course. It is perfectly logical that women in Quebec and Canada are supporting the efforts of women in developing countries where abortion is legal.

Contradictions, ambiguity, confusion—that is what the Conservative Party has been serving us since they came to power. Members of Parliament, civil society and the public are in total confusion. The government is opening doors but will make no real commitment. We want a clear commitment that will not allow for any ambiguity.

Canada is hosting the next G8 summit in June 2010. The Conservative Prime Minister wants to make maternal and child health a priority, and this would be a commendable initiative if it included a continuum of health care services. Nonetheless, the Prime Minister intends to take a different approach. He is taking advantage of his position as host to get the countries behind certain aspects of the maternal health program that can have an immediate impact, such as access to drinking water, immunization, nutrition and training for health care workers.

In his statement, the Prime Minister intentionally—or unintentionally, that is the question—failed to mention anything about reproductive health and family planning. The Bloc Québécois became concerned about the Conservatives' intentions when it learned that family planning, contraception and abortion would be left out of the strategies for fighting child and maternal mortality.

The government cannot go back on past commitments. At the last G8 summit in Italy in 2009, the member countries, including Canada, made a commitment to the international community to speed up progress in the fight for maternal health through sexual and reproductive health care and voluntary family planning.

Although we believe we need to fight effectively for maternal and child health in developing countries, the Bloc Québécois is very skeptical about the Conservatives' true will to do so. In fact, we could even say that they are being shamefully contradictory.

Canada's civil society reacted favourably to the government's statement that it would make maternal and child health a priority for the upcoming summits. In preparation for the G8 and G20 summits, Canadian NGOs have made a series of requests about the issues they would like the member countries to address. In its platform, Canada's civil society explicitly includes maternal and child health.

Could the Conservative government put aside its ideology and finally agree to meet with and listen to the civil society organizations that have the expertise and are well acquainted with the realities these women face?

In addition to the G8 and G20 meetings that will be held in Canada in June, world leaders will also meet at the United Nations in September 2010 to assess progress made on the millennium development goals.

The Bloc Québécois thinks that development assistance must revolve around general, but well-defined, principles and objectives. They must be based on the UN millennium goals that Canada agreed to.

The international community agreed on eight goals: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; and develop a global partnership for development.

As we can see, child health and maternal health are two of these goals. When Canada agreed to these goals, it agreed to fight infant and maternal mortality. It is quite clear that if the government adopts an effective maternal and child health care strategy, it will have a direct impact on achieving the other goals.

Here is another Conservative Party contradiction. In order to implement these goals, the UN called on member countries to commit 0.7% of their GDP in development assistance by 2015.

But in the 2010 Conservative budget, the government announced that it would cap the budget for development assistance at $5 billion per year. According to the federal government's budget projections, the ODA/GDP ratio for 2010-11 would be 0.29%, which equals a total of $5 billion in assistance.

By way of comparison, an additional $7.2 billion is required to reach 0.7% of GDP. Therefore, as the 2015 deadline approaches, we are forced to admit that the inaction of successive federal governments makes it increasingly unrealistic for Canada to attain the objective of 0.7% of GDP, which is exactly the means agreed to by the international community to reach the millennium development goals.

The government is fulfilling its promise to double the international aid budget from 2001-02 levels. However, that does not mean that it has reached the objective of 0.7% of GDP. This year, international aid represents 0.29% of GDP. At the least, we can say that the government has not really contradicted itself in this matter.

Given the circumstances, we doubt that the government has the will to effectively combat maternal and child mortality. In its budget, the government states that it will make infant and maternal health a priority at the G8 and G20 summits. Does Canada have the credibility to convince the G8 and G20 nations to make maternal and child health a priority when it is not making the financial effort required to meet the millennium development goals, which include maternal and child health?

Is the Canadian government aware that a number of G8 leaders are already promoting the issue of maternal health much more actively?

For example, as soon as he came to power, U.S. President Barack Obama repealed the Mexico City policy, established by President Reagan in 1984, which prohibited the U.S. Agency for International Development from providing funds to organizations that included abortion in their family planning measures. He believed that the exceedingly broad restrictions imposed on donations and aid were not justified and that they impeded efforts to promote effective family planning programs.

The American Congress recently allocated $648 million in aid to global family planning and reproductive health programs. The United States launched a new program that will be the centrepiece of its foreign policy, the global health initiative. It is committing $63 billion over the next six years, and a large part of that money will be invested in reducing maternal mortality and preventing millions of unwanted pregnancies.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown hosted the event, “Investing In Our Common Future: Healthy Women, Healthy Children”, was held at the United Nations on September 23, 2009, which resulted in the consensus for maternal, newborn and child health.

Maternal health is a human rights issue. As Amnesty International Canada recommended, it is critical that Canada now advance a human rights approach to addressing and reducing maternal mortality around the world.

According to Amnesty International, this approach must include: confronting the widespread discrimination, inequality and violence faced by women and girls worldwide; taking action to eliminate customary practices such as female genital mutilation and early and forced marriages that are harmful to or reinforce the subordination of women; ensuring access to family planning and contraceptive methods, and information about sexual and reproductive rights and health; removing financial and other barriers to accessing quality maternal health care; ensuring the accessibility of sexual and reproductive health services, including emergency obstetric care; ensuring the equitable distribution of health facilities, goods and services, and prioritizing access to essential health care for the most marginalized and disadvantaged women and girls.

Family planning and the use of contraception are an integral part of the fight against child and maternal mortality in developing countries. On July 11, 2008, as part of World Population Day, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: “Family planning is a fundamental component of reproductive health, as it allows for determining the spacing of pregnancies.”

Family planning, contraception and abortion cannot be separated from the issue of maternal and child health. On that, the UN Secretary-General is clear:

—world leaders proclaimed that individuals have a basic right to determine freely and responsibly the number and timing of their children. Millennium development goal 5, improving maternal health, affirms this right—

Responding to the contraception needs of developing countries would avoid millions of unwanted pregnancies and would save the lives of both mothers and children.

According to the United Nations Population Fund, an estimated 215 million women want to avoid becoming pregnant but do not have an effective method of contraception. Each year, 19 million abortions take place under dangerous conditions, resulting in 68,000 deaths. Many of these deaths could be prevented if information on family planning and contraception were available and used.

There is a desperate need for contraception. In nine sub-Saharan African countries, more than 30% of married woman have an unmet need for contraception. If these needs are unmet, it is obviously not because these women are not asking for it.; the large majority of them would like to have family-planning options.

Approximately 200 million women of child-bearing age want to delay their next pregnancy, but 137 million women use no contraception methods at all and 64 million use traditional methods that are less effective. Because of this, more than 63 million women have unwanted pregnancies each year.

By ensuring that women in developing countries have access to family planning without any obligation, it is estimated that maternal mortality could be reduced by one-third and infant mortality by 20%.

In Quebec and Canada, most women have access to proper medical care, contraception and abortion. It is rare for a woman to die in pregnancy or labour. It is clear that in developing countries these options could mean the difference between life and death for thousands of women and children.

The Conservatives must recognize this and integrate these options into their aid strategy for these countries. They should not remain insensitive to these questions when the time comes to help the least fortunate mothers and children.

[Erik Guay, March 18th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, today I would like to pay tribute to a great athlete, a resident of Mont-Tremblant in my riding, Erik Guay.

On March 11, with his second super G win in five days and his third consecutive podium finish in as many days, this 28-year-old alpine skier got his hands on the small crystal globe that goes to the best skier of the season in super G. Erik Guay is the first Quebecker to receive such an honour.

On the heels of his disappointing fifth-place finish in two events at the Vancouver Olympic Games, he ended his season with a bang by finishing first overall in super G.

This outstanding athlete, whose trainer is quick to describe him as a competitive, mature skier with a flawless mental game, is certainly a source of inspiration and pride for all of us.

My colleagues in the Bloc Québécois and I want to congratulate Erik Guay on his achievement.

[Israel, March 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government timidly deplored at the UN the decision by Prime Minister Netanyahu to increase Jewish settlement by building 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem.

Will the minister make it clear to the Israeli government that the situation is unacceptable and will he commit to condemning all construction in the occupied territory?

[Vues D'Afrique, March 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, on March 11, Vues d'Afrique learned that, after a 25-year partnership, CIDA will no longer be funding its activities, including the renowned PanAfrica International film festival. CIDA's decision to abandon such a proven organization is deplorable.

Can the Minister of International Cooperation explain in what way the activities of Vues d'Afrique no longer align with the government's priorities?

[Israel, March 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois wishes to join in the strong condemnation of the recent decision by the Israeli government to build 1,600 homes in East Jerusalem, which was unlawfully annexed by Israel in 1967.

The international community—the U.S., the European Union, Canada, and a number of countries, even Israel's closest allies—have condemned this decision.

The situation is even more critical given that, since the Oslo accords, the Palestinian authorities have made a freeze on colonization a prerequisite for resuming peace talks. The U.S. had just managed to obtain agreement for indirect negotiations.

Today, the Bloc Québécois is reiterating its position: we are opposed to any occupation and the colonization of Palestinian land, including East Jerusalem. Furthermore, there must be a satisfactory resolution with respect to the status of Jerusalem.

[Jasey-Jay Anderson, March 11th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, Quebec athletes distinguished themselves through their magnificent performances at the Olympic games in Vancouver.

Today I would like to salute Jasey-Jay Anderson, who is from Val-Morin. He is a fantastic athlete who topped off his career by winning the gold medal in the parallel giant slalom snowboarding.

A four-time world champion and winner of innumerable victories and podium finishes, this young family man should be proud of his truly memorable performance.

Throughout his career, Mr. Anderson has demonstrated determination, perseverance and tenacity. He never lost sight of his dream of reaching the highest step on the podium and saw his efforts crowned with a gold medal.

This snowboarder is a model of dedication and motivation for all young Quebeckers.

I join with my colleagues in the Bloc Québécois in congratulating Jasey-Jay Anderson and wishing him all the best in the future.