Maria Minna

[Points of Order, February 6th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I think that the government is misleading the House. During oral questions government ministers continually referred to a bill that the opposition is not supporting and the bill has not even been tabled in the House. That is totally unacceptable and it is misleading this House.

[Situation in Sri Lanka, February 4th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the government has finally come to the conclusion that political accommodation or political dialogue is what is needed. This is not something that we have heard before, not for a long time anyway, and I am glad to hear that.

Given the fact that we are at that stage now, I would like to know from the hon. member what the government is doing to get its message through to the government of Sri Lanka, and to the LTTE for that matter, to get that resolved, to have a ceasefire, and then to have a discussion about a different solution.

Has someone consulted with our high commissioner in Sri Lanka? What is she advising Canadians and what is she advising the government in terms of the plan that she might be suggesting, given her knowledge of the area and first-hand knowledge of the situation?

Does the Minister of Foreign Affairs, for instance, intend to visit or travel to Sri Lanka anytime soon? That would be helpful and I would think, given the situation there, that should have happened already. I would hope that would be happening sometime soon. Finally, will the government be consulting Canadians of Sri Lankan origin to involve Canada's diaspora in the discussion in terms of what their role might be in this, and also to seek advice and consult them on their ideas?

I wonder if any or all of these are in the works and if the government intends to act on any of them.

[Situation in Sri Lanka, February 4th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the members for Scarborough—Agincourt, Scarborough—Guildwood and Mississauga East—Cooksville.

I had the pleasure of visiting Sri Lanka twice. The first time was for a conference, but the second time I led an all-party parliamentary delegation to Sri Lanka as the chair of the Canada-Sri Lanka Parliamentary Association right after the tsunami, both to view the disaster of the tsunami and to ensure that moneys were actually going into reconstruction areas, but also to push for peace. In negotiations at the time there was still a ceasefire.

We met with the government representatives of all the parties involved as well as the LTTE in the one area we visited. In the landmines area we spoke to a lot of people. Unfortunately, I have to say that I came away from that visit convinced that neither side was interested in peace. That was what I drew from that visit. That is what I got from a lot of the discussions and meetings. The military solution, of course, which is what ensued, that lack of interest in the peace discussion, is what we have today which is the horrible humanitarian crisis which has trapped some 240,000 people in an area that they cannot get out of at the moment, but also, the many people it has injured, maimed and killed.

Canada was very active in putting forward and fighting for what is called responsibility to protect, which is a declaration of the UN now. It is something that we need to act on to protect the people. That was put in place to protect people and states that are not able to protect their own citizens. To some degree, this is happening in Sri Lanka today. I would hope that the Sri Lankan government would allow the United Nations to come in and work with it.

According to the Human Rights Watch report, on the one hand the LTTE refused the movement of civilians, but the Sri Lankan government has also contributed to the risk by detaining those who have managed to flee LTTE areas, including families in militarized detention camps, thereby denying them freedom of movement. This is wrong and it should stop. The freedom of movement of these people and the protection of the vulnerable is fundamental.

It is the government's duty to provide safety to all citizens but also to ensure journalists and human rights defenders the freedom of movement to seek out the truth. This has been denied and this is something that we must change, and it needs to happen very quickly.

Again, close to 250,000 people whose lives are at stake at the moment seem to be abandoned and they are crying out to all of us. So I call on both parties to respect the safe zones, to respect the safe areas, and to respect the non-military attack of medical facilities, schools and so on. They need to respect humanitarian and international law. It is extremely critical and we need to demand that this happen at all cost.

Humanitarian aid must reach those in need and there needs to be an immediate ceasefire with international monitors put in place to ensure that it is respected. The UN should appoint a special representative to monitor the ceasefire and also to start the peace talks immediately.

The challenges facing Sri Lanka cannot be resolved by military activities but through political action. This must include, obviously, a dialogue on the kind of government, the sharing of power, possibly a federal system as Canada has, or something similar, but certainly sharing of power needs to happen. The agreement also needs to include the recognition of plurality and minority rights.

Canada has a major role to play in this crisis. We have a large Sri Lankan diaspora in Canada, who together in partnership with the government should be and will be involved. So I, too, call on our government to take leadership in this case, to go to Sri Lanka, to start the talks, to push and to aggressively take action. It has been too long and we have waited far too long.

It is time that the Government of Canada be aggressive on this issue with the United Nations. The Security Council of the UN should also be involved. We call on both sides to a ceasefire immediately and to start talking about a political solution because without that there is no solution, and Sri Lanka violence will continue even if the government succeeds in its objective with the military at the end of the day.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, November 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, that is typical of what goes on all the time. Now we have the correct information about the settlement, and it indicates the full extent to which women are losing out. Pay equity was intended to help them catch up, to be able to have a normal life, to raise their families, and to be recognized for their work. They are part of our economy.

However, that is not happening. The government is doing the exact opposite. Pay equity is being eliminated in this country, and women’s rights are going out the window.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, November 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is absolutely right. There are many things that we need to do for women, certainly maintain the pay equity but also with respect to EI. EI has been reviewed a number of times. In fact, when it was set up, it was to be reviewed every five years to see what unintended consequences it might have with respect to some of the different recipients across the country.

Women are most disadvantaged with respect to EI at the moment. Therefore, it does need to be reformed. It does need to be expanded to include and assist women who are losing jobs and will be hit hardest by the economic downturn. Self-employed people, for instance, are not part of EI at the moment, and they should be. Many of them are women. EI needs to be reviewed and needs to be changed. The hon. member knows that is something for which I have advocated and would support.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, November 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what I was talking about earlier, that kind of attitude. It is contempt for people in the House. The member would not raise that if he were being honest with himself.

The fact of the matter is that the sanctimonious approach does not work. The reality is that the Conservatives' tax cuts and their programs have helped those who already have lots of money in this country.

Let us talk about the $5,000 savings. How many Canadians at this time will have $5,000 at the end of the year, especially middle income Canadians who are suffering already? How many will have $5,000 to put aside per member of the family, so it could become $20,000, $25,000 per family? The women I spoke to earlier will not have that kind of money.

The Conservatives should have been investing in people. They only looked after the people they thought might vote for them. This was part of their agenda to try to get their fabulous majority, which they missed last time and they are hoping to get it next time. Their attitude about entitlements and all that is quite disgusting. Those hon. members should take a look at themselves in the mirror when they wake up in the morning and see what good they have done for Canadians today.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, November 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister claimed that he wanted a new mandate because he needed to deal with the economy. That is what he told Canadians when he decided to call an election. By the way, it was an illegal election since he broke his own law and then usurped the powers of Parliament. In a parliamentary structure a minority government usually falls because of a vote of non-confidence in it and then there is an election. Parliament was not even sitting at the time he called the election, so a vote of non-confidence could not have happened. The Prime Minister usurped the powers of Parliament and broke his own law. From the start we see the kind of respect he has for Parliament.

After the election the Prime Minister said that we would have a different House of Commons. He said that he would be more collaborative with the opposition. He said there would be a different tone.

We saw that tone last night, a tone which is the same as before. Basically it has come back with a vengeance. It is a bullying tone, one of “my way or the highway”. There is no collaboration. The Prime Minister is totally ignoring the fact that this is a minority Parliament.

One minister said this morning that he never heard Canadians say that they actually wanted a minority government. Therefore, he does not acknowledge there is one because he does not acknowledge what Canadians are saying or how they vote. The Conservatives discount the democratic process in this country altogether.

In yesterday's statement women in this country were again being attacked. Is it not bad enough that the government and the Prime Minister did this in the very first budget they brought into the House? I will get to that in a moment. Let us look at some of the facts.

Women earn on average only $37,000 compared to men who earn on average $70,000. Women earn only 70¢ for every dollar that men earn. Women provide 80% of the caregiving for children and family members. Therefore, they are in and out of the labour force which costs them a great deal in terms of promotions, income and pension buildup over a lifetime. They are therefore poorer when they become seniors and usually are more vulnerable to economic downturns. They are more vulnerable as a whole. Because of this a large number of women need affordable housing, but they are not getting it.

Child care is gone. Most women cannot go to work without a proper quality child care program. One of the first things the Conservatives did was cancel the program.

There is no minister for women in this country. I was at a press conference recently where a member said that she was the first minister responsible for the status of women. She claimed she had no other portfolio, which was not true, but nonetheless she said that. The House leader said in the House that the size of cabinet has not been increased because some individuals are just secretaries of state. I thought they sat around the cabinet table. They go to cabinet meetings and they have an increased salary and extra staff. This was reiterated by another Conservative member in answer to a question. We do not have a minister. Today in the House she was not allowed to answer any questions on the issue. We do not have a minister responsible for the status of women in this country. Maybe the minister, if she is a minister, should resign and give her salary back to Canadians.

The Prime Minister might want to consider that women would like to have a minister to look after their issues.

The Prime Minister has an agenda. He knows exactly what he has wanted to do from the start. His first objective when he came to power was to strip the cupboard bare and spend all the money. That is what Harris did in Ontario. When there is no money left in the cupboard, the Prime Minister will say that there is no money so services have to be cut. Who pays the price when services are cut? The people who need the services the most: women and seniors. Housing and infrastructure programs suffer as well.

This has been a specific determined approach by the Conservative government from day one. Right off the bat, as soon as they got here, the Conservatives started to cut programs for the most vulnerable. They cut the literacy programs. How many wealthy people need literacy programs?

The Conservatives took the word “equality” out of women's equality, which is counter to the Constitution of Canada and the Charter of Rights, which says that women are equal. However, that is not happening so we need a program.

The government says that child care is not needed and that women do not need it to go to work. During the election I met a woman in my riding who broke down and cried in front of me because she could not afford child care. This was a woman from a middle-income family, with a home, a mortgage and a couple of children and she was spending about $1,300 per child on child care. She could not afford that amount but could not find a space elsewhere. No spaces were available. She broke down because her choice was to leave her job, which she did not want to do because she needed the income.

I know of another woman who had to leave her job and her partnership position, which meant she was lowering her income, to stay at home with her ailing mother. She had to somehow become self-employed. This goes back to women providing care and losing economic power. These women have no housing and no child care.

When we talk about infrastructure for the cities, the government has been talking about $33 billion for a long time but I have not seen a cheque go to the cities. The $33 billion, by the way, is not even real because, if we break it down, only about $1.5 billion are actually from the government. The rest of the money was there from the previous Liberal government. The Conservatives just keep recycling it and re-announcing it all over the place.

Where are women in this country? Nowhere. They do not exist, not as far as the government is concerned. In fact, it is doing everything possible to bury them further and hurt them as much as it can. I do not understand what the problem is.

We know that emptying the cupboard and cutting services was the government's objective from the start. It was not a secret. It happens constantly with all the budgets that have come through here.

However, the Conservatives did not get the majority they wanted in the last election. I truly believe the Prime Minister wants another election because he thinks that if he goes to the people and tells them how bad everybody else is and how badly he needs it now in order to put the economy back on track that he could get his majority, which would then give him the power to do as he likes with the country, with women and with social programs where he can tear down, take apart, leave the cupboards bare and make the cuts that he so badly wants to make. He has even started to politicize the judiciary. He has voted non-confidence in Elections Canada in the House. He has started breaking down our systems, our democratic structures, but he cannot finish the job and do it well because he does not have the majority that he wants. He has people like us objecting and getting in the way all the time. He needs an election so we are not in the way anymore and he can do what he really wants to do to the country.

He called an election because he wanted the majority so badly. He had no platform. He never said what he would do. He only introduced his platform in the very last couple of days, after the debate, because people were asking where it was. However, it said none of the things that he is doing now.

As I said earlier, he broke the law and usurped the powers of Parliament all because he wanted this fabulous majority to do as he wanted. Now he is trying to force another election because he does not want to invest in Canadians. He could do it. Nothing prevents the government from coming forward with an economic plan that would address our economic downturn and deal with the crises that this country is facing and will face.

I have seen other prime ministers in the past do it. Lester Pearson, one of our most famous prime ministers, brought major reforms to this country in two minority governments, major social reforms that we still enjoy today.

However, the present government does not want to do that because it is not interested in co-operating nor in building. The Prime Minister wants his majority so he can actually tear down. Right now nothing prevents the Prime Minister from coming into the House with a proper economic plan and proper programs to help Canadians who are losing their jobs or are about to lose their jobs, to help women and to invest in research, health, technology, green jobs, into anything. Anything would be helpful and anything would better than nothing.

There is no way I can support this kind of behaviour in the House and no way that I can support the government's intentions.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, November 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I heard the hon. member call time just a moment ago. With all due respect, I did not realize we had another Speaker in the House of Commons. Members of Parliament are now calling time on debate instead of the Speaker?

[The Economy, November 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, there is no such thing. There is no justification to remove remedies available to women to achieve equality, none whatsoever.

Women make up a huge portion of the workforce and they contribute to the economy, yet they still only earn 70¢ for every $1 that male counterparts earn for work of equal value.

Instead of attacking women's equality, why are the Conservatives not helping women affected by the economic downturn? That is no answer whatsoever. There are no guarantees and no supports, and it breaks the existing laws.

While we are speaking on it, the minister should be answering, not her colleague. I ask her to answer me. I need an answer from her.

[The Economy, November 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday's economic update was an attack on women's equality. The groundwork for this attack was put in place earlier this month at the Conservative policy convention when members voted to kill pay equity for women.

Instead of attacking and undermining progress made on pay equity, why have the Conservatives not introduced measures to help Canadian women who will bear the brunt of the economic downturn? Why step on them?