House of Commons photo

Crucial Fact

  • Her favourite word was colleague.

Last in Parliament October 2019, as NDP MP for Hochelaga (Québec)

Won her last election, in 2015, with 31% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Committees of the House April 11th, 2017

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question because not only is the population getting poorer, but women are getting poorer.

The face of homelessness is changing. It used to be mainly men, but now we are seeing more women, even though in their case it is more a matter of hidden homelessness. We also know that senior women are becoming poorer because their salaries were not as high as those of men.

Today, it is women who take leave because their salary is usually lower than that of their male spouse. The same goes for their pension fund, if they even have one. Women are getting poorer and are having a hard time finding housing that they can afford.

If we improved equity, namely pay equity, women could find decent housing, have a decent life, and avoid ending up in the street.

Committees of the House April 11th, 2017

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying earlier, a statement is all well and good, but we need something concrete. We need legislation. The Liberals can talk until they are blue in the face, but talk amounts to nothing if there is no action.

Committees of the House April 11th, 2017

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with my excellent colleague from Vancouver East.

The equality of men and women is a fundamental Canadian principle. Over a decade ago now, I worked on pay equity in Quebec. Quebec has pay equity legislation. I was fighting for gender equality over 10 years ago, and now, unfortunately, I have to do the same thing here at the federal level, because it has not been achieved. The federal government has a long way to go in this area.

The NDP has always fought against discrimination against women in all its forms. Examples of things the NDP has fought for include equal opportunity, income security, equal pay for work of equal value, full political participation, reproductive and sexual health rights, supports for caregivers, and many more.

Unfortunately, despite the ongoing battle, discrimination against women continues to exist in Canada. I want to give a little bit of historic context. Twenty-two years ago, in 1995, Canada signed the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which committed the Canadian government to conducting gender-based analysis. I made reference to this type of analysis, known as GBA, earlier. Unfortunately, successive governments have not lived up to that commitment.

Furthermore, as the Auditor General has pointed out in two separate audits, GBA is still only being deployed on a piecemeal and sporadic basis in Canada. Out of 110 government departments and agencies, only 27% actually have a process in place to conduct GBA. In those departments that are doing GBA, the analysis remains incomplete or is lacking in quality in too many cases.

Many witnesses appeared before the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, and the NDP agrees with much of their testimony. Let me give a few examples. One witness said, “Women’s equality is harmed when the government does not take into account the impact on women when creating laws, policies or programs.” It was also said that “one of the principal barriers to implementing GBA across the federal government is the absence of mandatory requirements.” Here is another comment: “There is an urgent need to provide the necessary resources to support Status of Women Canada in fully implementing GBA in all departments.” That just makes sense.

The NDP agrees with all of that and with the committee's recommendations regarding the absolute need for comprehensive legislation to mandate GBA across the federal government and the need to give adequate resources to Status of Women Canada.

I would like to come back to the reports of the two auditors general. In 2009, the Auditor General of Canada criticized the government’s implementation of GBA and called for clear expectations and guidelines for departments to conduct GBA. That was in 2009.

In 2015, the Auditor General again reviewed GBA and found the same lack of government leadership and the same inadequate implementation of GBA. In other words, we were no further ahead.

Nancy Cheng from the Office of the Auditor General said in committee, and I quote:

In our 2015 audit, we observed that gender-based analysis was still not fully deployed across the federal government, although 20 years had passed since the government had committed to applying this type of analysis to its policy decisions. In other words, gender considerations, including obstacles to the full participation of diverse groups of women and men, are not always considered in government decisions. This finding is similar to what we found in our 2009 audit.

After 20 years of international and domestic commitments, only 30 out of 110 government departments and agencies are formally engaged in GBA. The Auditor General’s 2015 audit also found that within four departments that implemented the GBA framework, analyses are not always complete or of acceptable quality. This observation was made in almost half of all cases of GBA, which is further proof of the government’s failure to properly implement GBA.

Several witnesses gave us a list of failures, as did the Office of the Auditor General of Canada. One of these failures is the absence of government directives, policies, and leadership. There were also the tight deadlines for developing policies and programs; the lack of understanding of the relevance of GBA, which serves as the basis for action; ineffective training or a lack of training altogether; a shortage of data or an inability to find relevant, reliable, and complete data that is disaggregated by gender and other identity factors; a lack of capacity to undertake the analysis; and no external reporting by departments.

This is a consistent failure to take women's equality seriously in government.

I will now ask a few questions. Had GBA been properly implemented would we still be lacking a national child care strategy? Would we have specific economic stimulus targeted to women? Would we have a national action plan to end violence against women? The questions have been asked.

For years, government departments and agencies such as Finance Canada, the Treasury Board Secretariat, and Canada have failed to turn down proposals that do not meet GBA requirements. Something is missing.

Cabinet has directed the central agencies to require GBA for all submissions to cabinet, and we applaud that decision. We also urge the government to bring in legislation to make it binding on all future cabinets. Action is needed. We need to pass legislation to strengthen the challenge function. We need a law. We need action, and not just rhetoric. The government must put its words into action. It must implement urgent legislative changes to ensure that each and every government policy, program, and law promotes the equality of Canadian women.

We are pleased that the committee report recommends that the government introduce comprehensive legislation to make GBA mandatory for all government departments and agencies. However, that does not adequately reflect the urgency of the situation.

Cindy Hanson, associate professor in adult education at the University of Regina and president elect of the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, reminded us that, back in 2005, the Standing Committee on the Status of Women indicated that legislation and accountability mechanisms were urgently required. We are hearing the same thing 12 years later. Where is the urgency?

Olena Hankivsky, a professor at the School of Public Policy, Simon Fraser University, said that we do not need more studies. What we need is real action, and we need it now.

Canadian women have waited 20 years and should not be forced to wait any longer. The New Democratic Party therefore recommends that the government uphold its commitment to gender equality and introduce legislation by June 2017, which is soon.

The government could follow the example set by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the only department that has been successful in implementing GBA. It is required by legislation to conduct GBA and report its results to Parliament every year. The effects were immediate and long-lasting. Fraser Valentine, director general of Strategic Policy and Planning, told us that the legislative requirement to produce annual reports influenced the department's culture and that the department had to build the necessary capacity immediately to meet that requirement. This had a knock-on effect throughout the department.

I would like to mention one final point raised by witnesses and the NDP. If we want to achieve equality, there has to be oversight. That is Status of Women Canada's role, but it has limited resources.

The government must ensure that Status of Women Canada has the human and financial resources it needs to do the job properly, and the NDP is ready to work with the government to make that happen.

Committees of the House April 11th, 2017

Mr. Speaker, any conversation about gender equality must also be a conversation about pay equity. The so-called feminist government has postponed pay equity for at least a year, if it ever happens at all.

For example, if a woman earns 70% of what her husband earns, she is the one who stays home with the kids because she earns less than her husband. That means she ends up working fewer years.

She will collect a smaller pension because she will have spent less time in the labour market and earned less money. As everyone knows, women live longer than men and are poorer in retirement.

Does my colleague think the government could help women by making pay equity a reality much faster?

Standing Orders of the House of Commons April 6th, 2017

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Prime Minister proved our point: he does not need to change the rules in order to answer the opposition's questions. That is his job.

Yet he is still bound and determined to take full control with no regard for our democracy.

Will he stop fooling around and sit down with the opposition for a real conversation so we can get on with formulating unanimous recommendations to improve our parliamentary system?

Status of Women April 6th, 2017

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister loves to tell everyone how proud he is to be a feminist, but according to the Conference Board of Canada, his government is falling far short when it comes to closing the gender wage gap. Canadian citizens have been waiting years for policies that would help eliminate income inequality between men and women.

The Prime Minister says all the right things to women in New York City, but when will he take action here at home to end this unfairness?

Justice April 5th, 2017

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals continue to hand out criminal records to Canadians, particularly young people and minority groups, for possession of marijuana.

Every time we propose the decriminalization of marijuana as an interim measure, the Liberals say that we are against legalization, which is not true. We are against the fact that thousands of Canadians are being prosecuted in the meantime, since that affects the rest of their lives.

Can the Prime Minister tell us how many people have been handed a criminal record since the last election?

Standing Orders of the House of Commons April 5th, 2017

Mr. Speaker, forcing a so-called discussion paper on the committee is a monologue, not a dialogue.

This Prime Minister promised to put an end to the concentration of power that began with his father's tenure, but instead he is preparing to ram through changes that will benefit the Liberals.

Does the Prime Minister understand the difference between making things better for Parliament and making things better for the Liberals?

The Budget April 4th, 2017

Madam Speaker, if I understood the member correctly, he is saying that the elimination of the tax credit for Montreal metro passes, for example, does not affect him because he does not live there.

I would like to remind him that he lives just one hour from Montreal and that, if fewer people take the metro in Montreal because this tax credit has been eliminated, the pollution will affect his community.

The Budget April 4th, 2017

Madam Speaker, this morning, in the all-party anti-poverty caucus, a doctor told us about one of his patients whose mental and physical health had been affected by the presence of mould in her apartment and who was unable to find affordable social housing because the waiting lists are too long.

In Hochelaga, as in Montreal, there are over 20,000 people on the waiting lists, and the situation in Toronto is even worse. Many people cannot afford decent housing and that is affecting them. However, what the Liberals are telling them in this budget is that, even though they are in crisis and there is mould in their home, they will have to wait because 90% of the money will not be allocated until after the next election and 50% of the money will not be allocated until two elections from now.

How can the Liberals look those most in need in the eye and tell them that they will have to wait a little longer?