Nicole Demers

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 12th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague and remind him that the Quebec pension plan allows women who choose to stay home to raise their children to exclude seven years from their pension calculation. However, the federal government does not—but should—recognize the work women do to ensure that their spouse or another family member in failing health can remain at home.

We know that most women my age, 60, will have to stop working and end their career to take care of a parent or a child who is sick if they do not want their relative to be placed in the hospital system or a CHSLD.

It is very important that these people be credited with a period of time in order that they may benefit from a fair pension.

My colleague is also correct when he says that women still earn only 70% or 72% of what men earn. This has repercussions not only in terms of hours worked, but also in terms of the weeks and months worked. At the end of the year, a women has worked less than a man. That is true because although family responsibilities are shared a bit better than they were 50 years ago, most family responsibilities still fall to women.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 12th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague. In fact, this time the federal government has not met the expectations of the Quebec forestry industry.

We know very well that the government is now attempting to recover some money. The London and American tribunals ruled that Canada had to pay additional charges on surplus softwood lumber shipments. But rather than making certain laws and taking certain action, we must be assured that the forestry industry has the money required to grow, and to change its way of doing things and upgrade its equipment.

All the measures currently in place have not made it possible for the industry to recover, to continue to grow and to provide jobs for Quebeckers working in this industry.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 12th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague's speech and she is right on several counts, particularly concerning the fact that this budget does not fulfill the goals of Quebeckers and Canadians.

This is confirmed by the fact that, in all 880 pages of the budget implementation bill, there is absolutely nothing for women. I have to wonder what this government has against women. Why does it refuse to recognize 52% of the population, and always prepare budgets, and budget implementation bills that completely ignore this segment of the population?

Worse still, we submitted some very sensible, very pertinent proposals to the government concerning certain issues. None of our proposals appears in the 2010-11 budget implementation bill. Freezing the salaries of MPs and senators does not matter all that much. However, refusing to improve access to employment insurance for our workers is indeed a serious matter. It is appalling.

I did not see a single measure in this budget that would allow me to believe that the government has learned anything over the past two years, that it learned anything from the presentations and demands—made before various committees—to restore certain programs and measures that were cut over the past four years. Women are the big losers in budget 2010-11.

If this budget had included a section telling us that the court challenges program was being restored, that would have made it much more interesting. If it had included measures to bring back the 16 Status of Women offices, we could have found something positive in this budget; but it does not contain any of that.

The budget included money for first nations women, specifically, for the Sisters in Spirit initiative. However, we do not know where that money will go. We do not know if the Sisters in Spirit program will benefit from it, or if the Department of Justice or Department of Public Safety will develop projects or programs using that money as they see fit. It would have been interesting to get more details.

We also saw that instead of making it easier for people to access employment insurance benefits, the government is going to take the money from the EI fund, just as it did in 1995, a total of $57 billion as of March 30. Once again, the government is going to rob those who work five, six or seven days a week to make a living. Once again, the government is taking the money they invested in the EI fund to protect themselves against layoffs and hard times. They will not have access to that money.

It is hard to believe that the government has people's best interests at heart when it says it is going to allow Canada Post to privatize some of its services. I have a hard time believing that this is a good thing.

I have a hard time believing that the caisses populaires Desjardins—of which I have been a member for many years and where I do my banking—want to have to have a federal charter to keep doing business. We are told that this would be done on a voluntary basis. But we know that when the government says something is being done on a voluntary basis in the financial markets, the word “voluntary” does not have the same meaning.

It is possible to be caught in a vise and forced to meet certain criteria. The caisses populaires Desjardins might have to comply with these new rules. Certainly, the banks would not agree to let the caisses populaires Desjardins keep on selling insurance and to allow Quebec to keep the system it has.

The budget does nothing to fulfill Quebeckers' goals, let alone those of Canadians. We heard this repeatedly at the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. People came to testify about the Canada and Quebec pension plans. They told us time and time again that the plans were not designed to meet women's needs. And the budget does nothing to fix that.

The only women who have access to a valid pension plan are the ones who work in the public sector. Women who work in other sectors, including the private sector, do not have access to a pension plan that allows them to retire at 65. They will not have the money they need to live comfortably in retirement.

Clearly, we cannot ensure that everyone enjoys a comfortable retirement, but we can at least ensure that they have access to some retirement income.

The budget implementation bill does not have a lot to offer to Quebec's forestry and manufacturing industries or to our farmers and our children. However, it does encroach on Quebec's jurisdiction over health by investing in the Rick Hansen Foundation and over education by investing in the pathways to education program.

Rather than continue to encroach on those areas of jurisdiction, the government should ensure that provincial transfers are carried out properly, which is not the case right now. Quebec is short $663 million because the government did not transfer enough funds for the province to meet its needs.

It is true that Quebec has superior social programs. We pay taxes so that we can benefit from these superior social programs, and we are very proud of them. Quebeckers have access to preventive withdrawal and parental leave. Last year alone, 86,000 children were born in Quebec. It has been a long time since there have been so many births in Quebec. Mr. Speaker, I know that you are a big proponent of families. You have several children of your own.

All of that is because of the social programs we set up. We make different social choices.

The federal government should not punish us for making those social choices. It should not restrict transfers to Quebec. We are entitled to that money. Like everyone else in Canada, we help create wealth. We pay all of our taxes, and the government should give the provinces, including Quebec, their due, which it is not doing now.

The Bloc Québécois will not hesitate to vote against the budget implementation bill, as it always does.

[Pay Equity Task Force Recommendations Act, April 12th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me no pleasure to rise today in the House to speak to this private member's bill.

In 2009, we did not agree with the budget and we voted against it because it did irreparable harm to women who have done an outstanding job working in the public sector for many years and yet are not given their due.

These women, who have worked for many years in government departments and federally regulated corporations, had the right to expect that all the opposition members would vote against the budget bill that stripped them of their rights.

Unfortunately, over the past four years, the government has chipped away at their rights. The same thing has happened with a number of other status of women issues. Members of the Bloc Québécois and the New Democratic Party stood up in the House to vote against the bill that day because we had no doubt that if we voted for it, we would betray the trust of all of those women. Those women are Quebeckers and Canadians. I want to emphasize that they are Canadians because the opposition leader seems to think that the Bloc Québécois stands up only for the rights of Quebeckers, not those of Canadians.

I want to point out that the opposition leader and his party members were not among the members who dared vote against this bill. When the time came to vote, they were not considering the Canadians this bill would hurt. He did not do what he should have back then, which is why we have to debate another bill today to give the right to pay equity back to these women.

Pay equity is not complicated: it means receiving equal pay for work of equal value. Work of equal value is easy to define if we have the proper tools to define it. A task force began studying the issue in 2001, and in 2004, it produced a comprehensive report over 500 pages long. The report recommended very specific steps to take to achieve pay equity and ensure that all women working for an organization under federal jurisdiction benefit from pay equity.

People have been fighting for this for years. For example, the rights of a number of women working for Bell Canada and various federal organizations were infringed upon. In Quebec, pay equity has already been achieved. These women were aware that their situation was not the same as that of Quebec women working for organizations under Quebec jurisdiction.

In the early 2000s, there was enough money to meet these needs, but sadly, the Liberal government of the day did not meet the needs of public and private sector employees under federal jurisdiction.

We could spend all day wondering. But the answer is in the question. As soon as an opposition party takes power, its convictions and perceptions of things change. It suddenly realizes that it is not possible to achieve pay equity, because it would be much too costly. But when these parties are in opposition, their convictions are much more in tune with the needs of the workers, ordinary human beings working from 9 to 5 every day. We meet these people in our ridings.

They trust us. They develop a bond with us. We listen carefully and then we are supposed to share their concerns here, in the House, to show them that they have been heard and that we will listen to them. Unfortunately, as it stands, neither side of this House seems to be listening.

The government is not listening. Since it took power, the government has made cuts to women's programs. It cut the court challenges program, it made shameless cuts to programs in Status of Women Canada, and it took away the right to pay equity.

Earlier, the hon. member was saying that anyone who now wants to seek pay equity can go before the labour court. How can a woman go before the labour court all by herself if she does not even have the right to be accompanied by a union representative? She does not even have the right to be accompanied by someone who knows all the rules and all the labour laws to defend her. If someone from her union decided to support her and defend her, the union would have to pay a $50,000 fine. Can you believe that? Have we ever seen such a glaring inequity? I have never seen anything like it, and I hope I never will again. I hope to never see such glaring inequities in this House again.

All women working in the public sector have called on us to return to the House and prepare a much more detailed and complete bill that will restore their right to pay equity. For these reasons, the Bloc Québécois will definitely be supporting the bill presented by the Leader of the Opposition.

However, we will examine this bill with a fine-tooth comb. We will ensure that it meets all needs, and that its application and implementation also conform to what is decided by Parliament.

All too often it is easy to draft a bill. It is easy to vote in favour of a bill. However, once the bill has been passed, things may be different.

Take, for example, the Immigration Act and the Liberal Party promises with respect to immigration. To date, these promises have not been kept, even though they were enshrined in legislation. They were made and voted on.

I would be surprised, even astonished, to see a bill on pay equity passed by the House. We know that the Conservatives will oppose this bill. I would be astonished if such a bill contained all the measures required to give women true pay equity.

Working women in Quebec who fall under federal labour laws are not entitled to preventive withdrawal, a measure extended to all other Quebec women. That is also part of equity.

Quebec women who work in federally-regulated undertakings do not have the right to the same parental leave as other women in Quebec. If, unfortunately, after taking parental leave, their employer fires them when they return to work, they are not entitled to employment insurance benefits. They are not entitled because they were sick during their parental leave.

In fact, according to the employment insurance system, a woman who gives birth to a child is sick. She qualifies for sick leave. Even if the Quebec government pays for parental leave, the woman fired when she returns to work is considered to have been sick. These are issues that must be clarified.

I hope that when this bill goes to committee, given the great wisdom of this House, we will be able to ensure the pertinence of all items contained therein.

[Pay Equity Task Force Recommendations Act, April 12th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, when the Leader of the Opposition decided to vote for the budget, what part did he not understand? That was the budget that took away women's right to pay equity.

[Invisible Work Day, April 1st, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I seek the unanimous consent of the House to adopt the following motion:

That this House highlight the importance of the so-called “invisible” unpaid work done by parents and caregivers on behalf of their children and aging family members by creating “Invisible Work Day”;

That the first Tuesday in April be designated “Invisible Work Day” in recognition of the important role this type of work plays in society;

That, following the example of UN member nations at the international conference in Beijing in 1995, this annual event be a time to emphasize the extent of unpaid work in Canada.

[Maternal and Child Health, March 31st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not mince words. She said that access to contraception and abortion is vital to the health of women in developing countries. Her position contrasts sharply with the Conservative government's attempts to export its backward ideology overseas.

Will the Prime Minister heed Ms. Clinton's recommendations, or will he insist on siding with the ultra-conservative lobbyists who seem to have privileged access to his office?

[Conservative Party Platform, March 30th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the cat is out of the bag and we now know where the Prime Minister is getting his policies from. The Prime Minister is working for the religious right lobbies.

It comes as no surprise that many aspects of the Conservatives' regressive, reformist agenda are based on the ideology of the religious right. There are many recent examples where this government's position falls into line with the positions of these groups: refusing to fund a maternal health program abroad that would include every family planning option including abortion as a last resort; removing from the immigrants' handbook the passage stating that homosexuals have rights; cutting funding to KAIROS, an agency that does work in the occupied Palestinian territories.

It is shameful that the Conservatives choose to promote the regressive agenda of the religious right, even if that—

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, March 30th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague. He is right, of course.

This situation is inexplicable. Life is full of such mysteries. The mayor of Quebec City, who was misled over the past few weeks, would agree that we have the right to be angry because we were misled by people whom we believed were as liberal as they claimed to be. Unfortunately, the opposite has turned out to be true. Today, it is clear that the Liberal Party will do whatever it takes to maintain the status quo and avoid an election, just as the Conservative Party is prepared to do and say whatever it takes, to stoop to new lows just to keep its hold on power for a little longer before going to the polls because it is not ready. I think that what is going on here now is deplorable. This is a very sad day for democracy. I hope that they will have the courage to do something different.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, March 30th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the New Democratic Party, the only other party in this House besides the Bloc Québécois that refuses to sign on to this agreement.

Why is he surprised? The Liberal Party has become unrecognizable. It is now voting against its own motions and voting with the government while contending to vote against it. How can this flip-flop by the Liberal Party surprise him? Personally, I do not find it surprising. The leader of that party condoned torture, under certain conditions, and the war in Iraq, under certain conditions.

What I find surprising is that the Liberal Party is holding on to its leader. If the members of that party no longer wish to be Liberals, all they have to do is cross the floor.