Maria Minna

[Government Spending, March 9th, 2009]

Where's the $3 billion you're sitting on?

[International Women's Day, March 5th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, International Women's Day is Sunday, March 8. It is a time to celebrate the political, social and economic achievements of women past, present and future.

Indeed, women have made great strides in the past century, but as we celebrate today, we still have a fight before us. Only 21% of members of this chamber are women, women still earn only 70¢ on the dollar of what men earn for work of equal value and 80% of unpaid caregiving in our country is done by women who are continuously in and out of the work force to care for sick loved ones and to care for their children. Women are the victims of time poverty.

We have watched as the government removed equality from the mandate of the women's program, closed 12 of 16 regional offices for Status of Women and cut off at the knees funding for research and advocacy. More recent, the government launched its ideological attack on women's human rights by removing their right to pay equity.

Women have a long history of coming together to fight injustices and I stand with those women here today to strive for a better future for women, for true equality.

[Points of Order, March 2nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, during question period the President of the Treasury Board claimed, constantly, that the model that the government is using is based on the Ontario model. I know that it is not.

The information the minister is giving in the House is incorrect because the pieces that appear in the Ontario model are not at all in the government one, in terms of the commission, the tribunal, as well as all of the appeals and the lack of punishment for the unions, which the government has.

I would like to table the Ontario legislation so that the minister might read it and be able to reacquaint himself with the real facts of the legislation as opposed to what he is presenting in the House which is patently false and totally off-base.

[Pay Equity, March 2nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, that is absolutely and patently false. It is obvious that the minister has not even read the Ontario act. The Ontario model has a pay equity commission to ensure pay equity is implemented and a tribunal to hear pay equity complaints. It does not allow for women's rights to be bargained away, as the government is doing.

What measures from the Ontario model are in the Conservative government's legislation?

[Pay Equity, March 2nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the government is trying to mislead Canadian women. It has said that its so-called pay equity legislation is based on the Ontario pay equity model, but the government's plan could not be more different.

Could the minister explain exactly what parts of his legislation are modelled on the Ontario proactive pay equity legislation?

[Human Resources, February 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, with 6,000 child care spaces expected to close in Toronto, child care workers are concerned about their jobs. The waiting lists for spaces are over two years long. Children currently in those spaces will soon have nowhere to go. Where will that leave their parents?

Because the Conservatives will not fund child care, it becomes a vicious circle of job losses. At a time when we should be creating jobs, why is the government actually causing more jobs to be lost?

[Petitions, February 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, this petition is primarily from residents of the greater Toronto area but also from the province of Alberta. It has to do with the health and safety of the transportation of animals. It says that the undersigned citizens of Canada petition the House of Commons to amend the animal transport regulations under Canada's Health of Animals Act to be consistent with the findings of the EU scientific committee on animal health and welfare, to reduce transport time for pigs, poultry, horses, calves and lambs to 8 hours, and 12 hours for cattle, sheep, goats, and ensure adequate enforcement of the regulations. The petitioners ask that the amendments be passed quickly.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 9th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, most of us would support any assistance that we can give to young people in different regions of this country to access education, employment and training.

Right now, given our economic situation, a larger percentage of young people are unemployed compared to the rest of the population. This generally happens when there is a downturn in the economy. The last time we had a recession was when I was first elected. While there was an unemployment rate of 11.5% in the country, 27% of youth were unemployed.

We all need to work together to ensure that young people in this country are looked after properly, because they are the future of this country. They are the future leaders of our country and they need a chance to get their lives on track.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 9th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, to my knowledge the NDP did not put forward any amendments to the bill either, so let us get some reality here.

The other thing we have to be cognizant of is that when we had a minority government, the NDP chose to knock that government down, knowing full well what the Prime Minister would have done and what the Conservatives were going to do. They have been very clear about it. Those NDP members knew full well what they were bringing in, but chose nonetheless to kill a Liberal minority government to work with the Conservatives. That is why we now have a bit of a problem and a mess on our hands with this situation.

The issues related to pay equity are serious to me and always have been. I would like to see the government change its position, but I do not have any great hope that it will.

We are going through an economic crisis. We Liberals have a responsibility in this House, unlike the NDP, which wants to have an election every other day. I do not think Canadians want an election right now. Therefore, we will work with the government as much as we can in the short term. In the long term, women in this country will get their rights back, but it will only be with a Liberal government, not with the NDP or the Conservatives.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 9th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I think we all know that the budget tabled recently by the government would not have been fashioned the way it was had there not been pressure from the opposition. Had November not happened, had the financial update not happened, had the prorogation not happened, had the pressure from all Canadians and from labour, business and House opposition members not happened, that particular budget probably would not have happened. Certainly there would not have been the measures within that budget that address some of the situations in our economy. I think that needs to be said.

There are some encouraging pieces in that budget; however, it is a flawed document, because it does not specifically address a lot of areas that deal with the unemployed and with building an economy for the future. Let me start with some of the things the budget misses out on tremendously.

Early education and child care in this country constitute a huge problem. There are no spaces being created by the government, despite its constant claim that we have universal child care, which of course does not exist under this particular government. In fact, it cut $5 billion off a national child care program put in place by the Liberal government prior to that.

My own province of Ontario is running out of money to provide child care. We do not know yet whether the government will come forward and provide the funding or not. In Toronto alone, 6,000 spaces are set to close, while we have a two- to three-year wait-lists for children. This situation gives parents no choices.

Let us look at the economy. Parents are losing jobs. They need early education and child care to be able to go to the retraining programs that the government claims it is putting in place in order for them to go back to those jobs we are trying to create.

On top of that, it is also about development. Creating child care spaces also creates infrastructure, as well as jobs for the teachers who would be participating, not to mention the benefit to the families. This is a point the government has not understood: early education and child care are not just about babysitting, but also about early childhood development and supporting families in our society. This is a major gap in which social infrastructure is not addressed. Instead of building the lives of children and preparing them for the future, we are leaving them behind at the very outset, because there is no plan and never has been.

Unquestionably there is some money for affordable housing. I will not take away the support for low-income seniors and disabled people. The $1 billion is a one-time investment over two years for renovation and energy retrofits, but no new buildings are being created. There is no new affordable housing being built for families who are waiting right now. I think the wait-list is somewhere around six to seven years to find any affordable housing whatsoever for families with moderate to low income in Toronto, but there is no long-term strategy here for affordable housing of any kind.

There is no question that I appreciate the assistance for seniors and disabled families. Nonetheless, it is only $75 million over two years for construction of housing for persons with disabilities and $400 million over two years targeted for low-income seniors. Those are two good pieces. I am glad to see there is at least some assistance for some of the more vulnerable people in our society. However, the reality is that in this country people are waiting six to seven years or more for affordable housing. In my own riding I have seen families who have lost jobs begging and coming to me because they cannot pay their rent or find affordable housing.

Under this affordable housing plan we have retrofits, and that is great. There is no question that renovation is a good program, but people need to have money to put forward in order to be able to benefit from home renovation. If people do not have a job or the money to pay a mortgage, they cannot do it. These programs help those Canadians who have money, and that is okay, because we need people to spend money. However, we also need to look after those people who are vulnerable in our society, the large number of people who have lost jobs and the others already on the wait-list who have not been able to access affordable housing.

Affordable housing is a major infrastructure program as well as a benefit to society. It is an investment in the long term. That housing will be there for decades to come and will bring stability to the sector. Looking into the future, it would be investing in our society as well as creating jobs in our community, and we need to do that. Social infrastructure is just as important as the infrastructure for roads, bridges and so on.

Another area which is not just missed, but it is actually punitive, and that is not even the right word, is pay equity. Pay equity is a human rights issue for women. It is not a privilege. It is not something that is done because one is trying to be nice. It is a basic human right for women.

Women in this country are now earning 70¢ to the dollar. In the mid-nineties they were earning 72¢ to the dollar. They are actually going backward and not making headway. That is taking into consideration a university education as well. The fact of the matter is that women are earning less. This House has asked the government repeatedly to strengthen pay equity. The reports from the standing committee of the House have constantly requested the same thing. A task force report was tabled as far back as 2004 to bring forward proactive pay equity legislation, but under the current legislation the government is in fact taking away the right for women to even put in a complaint. Now, if a woman is being discriminated against on a pay issue, she cannot even put in a complaint under the current bill. That will be eliminated because it is supposed to be part of the collective bargaining agreement.

I have all the respect for unions and will always support collective bargaining, but women's rights are not to be bartered with at the table. I also learned today that not only women can no longer put in complaints, but also that if a union member helps a woman put forward a complaint to the human rights commission, that member will be charged $50,000 for actually assisting her to put in a complaint under an act under which she has every right to put in a complaint. It is absolutely bizarre that the government has, from day one, from the time it was elected back in 2006 and in budget after budget, constantly brought in measures that are to the detriment of women, that put women down and erase them from the face of any legislation. I do not know what the government's problem is. Seventy-six per cent of women are in the labour force, but this seems to be something that does not sink in.

I want to go to something else, and that is jobs for the future.

There is nothing in this document that is strong on the environment. We have seen the results of previous environmental programs, such as the transit passes, which have actually produced absolutely nothing. They have put money into people's pockets, but they have not created any measurable reduction in environmental pollution, so that does not help in any way.

There is no investment in the jobs of tomorrow. The President of the United States is talking about investing in green technology, in creating the jobs of tomorrow. I guess we will be buying their technology, because we are not doing it ourselves, and this budget does not have it.

Employment insurance has been extended five weeks, yes, but accessibility is still a huge problem, especially for women. Nearly three times as many men qualified for EI during the last reporting period than did women. That shows one of the major concerns with respect to EI.

I have a great deal more to say on that point, although maybe not at this time. These are just some of the issues on which, in my view, the government has missed the boat. I would urge the government to listen to the opposition, as it did on some of the things it has put in the budget; to make changes in the next little while; and to invest in the areas that will strengthen our economy, make us a partner with each other, build for the future and help us come out of this mess with a stronger rather than weaker society.