Michelle Rempel

[Salaries Act, October 26th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, sadly, there are a lot of Calgarians and Albertans who are used to Toronto telling them what to do. I will leave it at that.

[Salaries Act, October 26th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I am tired of feminism being used as a word and a tool for political gain by all parties in the House. I am tired of tokenism. I am tired of having worked my way up to where I am and having bills like this come to the House of Commons. I am tired of having Liberal colleagues, colleagues of all political stripes, stand up on technicalities, saying that maybe this is not this and that.

If we are going to get serious about gender equality, this debate has to stop. We have been having this debate for 30 years. We need to stop putting bills like this forward, stop technicalities, and stop having announcements about gender parity when it is not gender parity. We need to start empowering women and overcoming systemic barriers to allow women to participate in all facets of society. The Prime Minister needs to stop saying that he is a feminist to sell his socks on the cover of international magazines.

That is the difference between this and a true conversation about feminism that we can achieve through different policy mechanisms. It is not based on one political stripe or one political ideology. We cannot gloss over the fact that it is a convenient label to sell votes. That has to stop.

[Salaries Act, October 26th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that under the structure created by the Prime Minister, there are certain ministers in cabinet, many of them women, who have to report to senior members within the cabinet who are men. That is not gender equality.

[Salaries Act, October 26th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the reason feminism is material to this bill is that colleagues in the Liberal Party have talked about the Prime Minister's feminist bona fides. Colleagues in my party have talked about whether this bill is actually feminist. Colleagues in the NDP have raised the same question. I want to have a more honest conversation today.

Two days ago, in the House of Commons, the Minister of Status of Women was asked a question by one of her colleagues on the Liberal backbench about feminism and different slurs that have been used. She made a reference to two things that have made the news recently. One was calling parliamentary colleagues Barbies. I have had the great pleasure of being called that before. In fact, an artist in Manitoba, who I understand actually had grants at the time, although I am not sure, from the Manitoba Arts Council, put together a movie that insinuated that I was a talking-point Barbie, so I have some sympathy. The minister also talked about a very derogatory term, “feminazi”, being used.

The problem I had with the Minister of Status of Women's response was that she made a glib comment that I think was designed to absolve her party of guilt on this aspect. To me, rather than being honest about the fact that none of us, to put it politely, is perfect in this regard, and no party is fantastic about this, the minister herself stood very proudly and very glibly ignored this key fact. I raised comments made by one of her colleagues. If I had had more time to find the quote, I could have raised the fact that one of her colleagues may have insinuated that one of my colleagues was akin to a stripper. Some of my colleagues opposite are now sitting on the independent benches for various reasons.

We are all uncomfortable here now, and we should be, because when we talk about being feminist and standing up for women's rights, we cannot pay lip service or make it a partisan issue. That is what we do here over and over again. I am not going to pretend that my party has been perfect, and I am also not going to wave the stick at just the Liberal Party. I am going to ask all members in the House to do a lot better.

With regard to this bill, if my colleagues in the Liberal Party really support women's rights, they are going to tell the Prime Minister that maybe it is not right to pass a bill that calls female ministers equal when they do not have the ability to bring memoranda to cabinet. For my colleagues on the Liberal backbench who do not understand what that means, it means that there are people in the “gender-parity cabinet” who are called full cabinet members, and are included in the count of their quota, who do not have the right to bring a topic to cabinet for consideration without the approval of a senior, and in most cases male, minister.

They also do not have the right to chair cabinet committees. In fact, if we look at the chairmanship and composition of the Prime Minister's cabinet committees, which is where the real power is in government, which you know, Mr. Speaker, and all of us in this place know, it is actually a lie and an affront to say that there is gender parity in that cabinet. If we are going to be uncomfortable, let us talk about that fact.

Rather than enshrining this in law and having people stand here and extol the virtues of it, let us call a spade a spade. This bill would not create gender parity. It would make women in cabinet say that they are equal, even when they are not, because of the Prime Minister's ego. That is the antithesis of feminism. That is making women cover over inequality for the political gain of a man. I do not care what political stripe members are in this place, that is wrong.

I have had to roll my eyes and facepalm when some of my male colleagues have said things that made me absolutely and completely angry, things that were cringeworthy. I have talked to them afterward and said that I was not going to carry the bag for them. They know that.

I am very proud of the advances my party has made for women in this country. We might not agree on how to achieve gender equality, but if we are going to move forward on that, I would like to think that we are going to agree that a bill like this does not do it.

I do not care if the Prime Minister calls himself a feminist. He should be putting his money where his mouth is all the time, and this bill does not do it. I cannot support it, nor should any member of the Liberal caucus. I would like to see them talk to the minister and say that I have a point and this should be tweaked.

I was appointed as a junior cabinet minister. I was appointed as a minister of state. I was really glad to do that, because it gave me time to understand how the bureaucracy worked, how government worked, and how the cabinet table worked. Male colleagues were appointed by former Prime Minister Harper to the same role. It was not about gender. To me it was about career progression. I had someone who believed in me and thought I had the potential to be a senior member of government but who also gave me time to learn how government worked before the onslaught of question period and media scrums.

We know that there are ministers in the government, and I am sure they are well-intentioned and came to Ottawa wanting to effect change, who do not know how to do their jobs. They do not understand that bureaucrats are going to put out memos for them to sign off on about things like taxing employee discounts. They are not going to understand that it means that they should not sign off on those memos and should review things.

I had time to learn how that worked before I was stuck in as a minister of national revenue. That is not a bad thing. That is a good thing. I am so honoured that I had the opportunity to learn how to do that while contributing to government.

Here we are today with a bill that says that it would create gender parity in cabinet, and it would not. How can people across the way stand and say that it is a great advancement for feminism, when it is not?

A better way to have more women in politics and around the cabinet table would be if we understood that there are tools at our disposal right now. Earlier in the debate, one of my colleagues talked about the fact that the Prime Minister already has in his toolkit the ability to have full cabinet ministers. Hopefully they would be, as they have been across different governments, people who have a degree of experience in this place and in parliamentary committees and an understanding of how government works. That is a different skill set than they would have in any private sector industry or NGO. This place has a learned skill set, and that is okay.

Focusing on tokenism, and then trying to cover it up with a thin veil of feminism that is false, is actually doing a disservice to Canadians, because we are throwing people into situations when they are not ready to govern. That abdicates our fiduciary responsibility to Canadian taxpayers. It abdicates our responsibility to the public service to understand how to translate a political mandate into change within the public service. It abdicates our responsibility to Canadians in that ministers have to understand how those two things work together when they are bringing bills forward in the House of Commons and through committee. It abdicates our responsibility to women, because we are calling something feminist when it is not.

I am not going to stand here and say that I am perfect or that anyone in this House is perfect, but by standing here pretending that this bill is feminist, we are doing a disservice to all Canadians.

My colleagues opposite should go into their caucus room next week and say that maybe they should make some changes to this bill. It can be done in committee. It does not work right now. It is not doing it for me, it is not doing it for the NDP, and I am sure it is not doing it for a lot of people in the Liberal caucus.

Let us do something that resembles work in this place. Let us have a debate, translate those changes at committee, especially given the testimony we heard at the government operations committee, and have a bill that creates, not stymies, gender equality.

[Salaries Act, October 26th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, when the Prime Minister first announced his cabinet in November 2015, something odd happened. Although I do not agree with the politics of people like the former minister of health and the justice minister, they arguably have very strong CVs and have definitely earned their place in cabinet. Rather than let those CVs speak for themselves, what did the Prime Minister do? Rather than let that gender-balanced cabinet speak for itself, he had to make it about himself with a big announcement, the day before, about gender equity. Similarly, his wife posted, on International Women's Day, a picture of her longingly looking at her husband, saying that on International Women's Day, we celebrate men.

I am wondering if my colleague can elaborate on how damaging it is when someone purports to be a feminist and instead makes it about himself.

[Foreign Affairs, October 24th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the confines of multilateralism, and I understand that the government is raising the issue in multilateral formats, but to be honest, the people of Venezuela and the people of Venezuela who are in Canada right now expect us to do more than just provide decorations and statements. That is great, but we need to advocate for concrete action.

I am wondering if my colleague would commit to at least taking the suggestion back to his minister, both for the Lima Group meetings and also for a position that could be taken to the UN, to at least look at Canada advocating for the United Nations to appoint a humanitarian aid coordinator specifically for Venezuela. This would acknowledge the fact that there is a humanitarian situation in Venezuela but would also hopefully help coordinate the efforts of NGOs that are trying to deliver aid in the region and get food and supplies to the people of Venezuela who are suffering.

[Foreign Affairs, October 24th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I come before the House tonight with a weighty issue. The question I originally asked was some months ago, and it related to the fact that the government bought Broadway tickets for a representative of the corrupt government of Maduro in Venezuela. That was wrong, but I want to get to the heart of the matter. What is the Liberal government going to do to help the people of Venezuela? What material action is the government going to take?

Why is this important? I have a large Venezuelan community in my riding and in the broader community of Calgary. It is very vibrant. There was just a Venezuelan Cultural Day celebration. My friend, Miguel Arturo, is a proud member of that community. What gets to my heart is that when I talk to him and members of his community, as much as they are proud of their heritage, they are panicked. They are beside themselves because of what is happening in their country.

What is happening in Venezuela right now should light the world on fire. We should not be looking at this as a partisan issue. What this corrupt dictator has done to that country should be a concern to all Canadians who believe in democracy, the rights of parliamentarians, and human rights in general. Economic collapse aside, the reality is that parliamentarians are being violently harassed. The parliament now is illegitimate.

My friend told me that there were regional elections for the governor of each of the states on October 15. The elections were held without supervision or audits, and anyone who might have been elected from an opposition party basically had to swear fealty or be approved by the illegitimate parliament.

I was at the Inter-Parliamentary Union meetings that took place last week. It was astounding to watch what happened to the woman from Venezuela who brought forward a motion for an emergency debate on this crisis, in a multilateral situation. I am speculating, but I think she was harassed into removing that resolution from the floor.

If Canada is going to have a place in the world, we have to respond to Venezuela, and I would like the government to do this. I would like the government to stand up at the United Nations and ask it to appoint a humanitarian aid coordinator. It is a sort of back-door, easy way of getting the United Nations to acknowledge that there is a humanitarian crisis. It would also acknowledge the fact that aid organizations cannot deliver aid to Venezuela right now. Any aid shipments are either being turned away or expropriated and distributed to people who are loyal to the government.

We have to realize that this is not just a quasi-crisis. There is no food in Venezuela. There are no human rights. People who are any sort of political dissident are being rounded up. This is happening in a country that was once economically viable and that was once marginally peaceful. It is in our backyard.

There is a huge community of Venezuelans in Canada who expect us to put our money where our mouths are as legislators.When we stand up and say that Canadians or Canadian legislators support human rights, it is not about nice words. We have to take action. My plea to the parliamentary secretary, who is a reasonable human being, is to show the Venezuelan community what the government is going to do as a tangible action to support them.

[Status of Women, October 24th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, earlier the Minister of Status of Women made some insinuations around Barbies and feminazis. I could stand here and point out that the Prime Minister's parliamentary secretary, in 2007, posted “hahahaha.......... I'm sure you cleaned it up nicely, with you being a woman and all!!! It's in your DNA...”.

My question for the Prime Minister is this. Will he get his female cabinet ministers to stand here and have an argument about who is more sexist than the other, or will he start doing actual things for women, like protecting Yazidi sex slaves, like correcting the sham of the missing and murdered indigenous women, like condemning the ruling around—

[Foreign Affairs, October 4th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, my colleague opposite talked about the government's commitment to ensuring the promotion of human rights around the world. Right now within the United Nations, only 2% of its budget is allocated to human rights promotion activities. I was shocked when I heard that number from several leading human rights experts. I believe there will be an international campaign to reallocate some of the UN's budget toward specifically human rights promotion activities within the UN. I think that will have huge international support.

To reiterate, or to put some meat behind my colleague's assertion that the government stands up for human rights, will he commit the government to working in the UN to ensure that a greater percentage of the budget, at least doubling that amount, is reallocated to the UN, specifically to human rights promotions?

[Foreign Affairs, October 4th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, earlier this year we received news that Saudi Arabia had been voted as a member of the United Nations committee charged with promoting and furthering the rights of women. Certainly, I think anyone in the House would be hard-pressed to defend Saudi Arabia as a champion of women's rights. A lot of people across the political spectrum in the House raised their eyebrows, and rightly so, at that decision.

The 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly occurred in New York about two weeks ago. In his speech the new Secretary General spoke about the need for reforming the United Nations.

In this regard, there are related issues that we have been charged with here in the House in Commons, and certainly near and dear to my heart is the global response to the Yazidi genocide. It took many months for the House, government, and department of immigration to respond to the fact that Canada had not brought in any Yazidi genocide survivors. Even to this day, the number has been really low.

One of the questions related to UN reform was how the UNHCR, for example, works to ensure that victims of genocide who might be internally displaced make it onto their list, and that people in these cohorts are not discriminated against in their camps but their passage expedited. This is not a partisan discussion, but a reflection of the fact that the world has changed since the original refugee conventions were signed after World War II. When there are big big bureaucracies like the UN, they are slow to change. It is up to member states such as Canada to push to ensure that positive changes happen.

We have gone through the UNGA and heard the charge by the Secretary General to look at reform, and yet have seen the example of states such as Saudi Arabia becoming members of the Commission on the Status of Women at the UN. All of this really speaks to the soul of the UN and how we as a member state are pushing and advocating for change.

The government has signalled how keen it is to get a seat on the UN Security Council, which is one of the only bodies that can compel member states to do something. However, the government cannot just campaign to get on the Security Council, but should have an agenda, and I would like to see reform as part of that agenda.

If Canada is successful in its bid to get a seat on the Security Council, will the Liberal government stand up and oppose countries such as Saudi Arabia sitting on the women's rights commission, or North Korea sitting on the human rights commission? If the government were given this mandate, I want to get a sense of what it would actually do with it.