Sheila Malcolmson

[Status of Women, March 8th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, the last time we addressed this issue, we were talking about the New Democrats' hope that the government would implement a national action plan to end violence against women. This week there was a major push by women's organizations for a national action plan to end violence against women. The same front-line women's organizations in Canada have been leading the way on gender equality.

Here are a couple of updates for the House. This week, in the Vancouver Sun, Janice Abbott, the CEO of Atira Women's Resource Society, a women's anti-violence organization, said:

If Canada has a role to play, globally and locally, in the protection and improvement of women's rights, it is this: We need, as noted in Amnesty International's 2017 Human Rights Agenda, for Canada to develop a “comprehensive, coordinated, well-resourced national action plan on violence against women, with specific measures to end violence against indigenous women and girls.”

This week, Oxfam issued a report card, a feminist scorecard 2017, and it noted, “What is now needed is a comprehensive national action plan to end violence against women”. Oxfam noted, “Much to the disappointment of women's organizations across the country, the Liberal government has not committed to developing a national action plan on violence against women”.

The absence of a national action plan is making responses largely fragmented, often inaccessible, and inconsistent across our country.

The Oxfam report card went on to say that this government's decision to go with a narrower strategy is a “disappointment to women's organizations across the country. This strategy will only apply to federal institutions and therefore lacks the depth and scope of a national action plan, which would have responded to the need for women to have access to comparable levels of services and protection across the country”.

This falls again on Canada's commitment to the United Nations around a national action plan to end violence against women. The United Nations called in 1995 and again in 2008. Canada signed on to that commitment to have a national action plan by the year 2015. Last year, in November, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women turned its attention to the government's track record. The UN CEDAW said this government is failing to act on “The continued high prevalence of gender-based violence against women...particularly against indigenous women and girls;...the lack of a national action plan, bearing in mind that the strategy will only apply at the federal level;...the lack of shelters, support services and other protective measures for women victims of gender-based violence, which...prevents them from leaving their violent partners”.

The year before, in 2015, a network of dozens of organizations across the country submitted a blueprint for Canada's national action plan on violence against women and girls.

The government has all the tools, all the commitments, and all the incentives, given its stated platform to take leadership, but that leadership is missing. Why will the government not adopt a national plan? Why such a narrow federal plan to end violence against women?

[Status of Women, March 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, New Democrats know it is the federal government's job to eliminate gender inequality. Words are not enough. Women want concrete action, and we have waited far too long.

Pay equity is a fundamental human right. Countries like Iceland not only made pay equity the law, but they are now demanding that corporations prove that they are not paying women less than men.

Can the Prime Minister explain to the women of this country how much longer they will have to wait before you enact pay equity legislation?

[International Women's Day, March 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, after decades of marching, resisting, and persisting for equal rights, on International Women's Day we see first-hand the women's movement is stronger than ever.

Today, young women filled this House, a powerful show of new leadership. I honour especially delegate Arezoo Najibzadeh. She chose to leave her seat empty to represent the countless women who have been denied their political voice.

We need all women's voices. We need all hands on deck for the challenges that Canada faces. Yet successive Liberal and Conservative governments have failed to act. It is far past time for the Liberals to live up to their feminist claims and get to work.

We need action for women and for future generations. New Democrats will never stop fighting for women's equality and human rights.

[Status of Women, March 7th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, on the eve of International Women's Day, the government's failure to walk the talk on feminism is in the spotlight. A new report card from Oxfam finds little progress on nearly every front and condemns the government for its complete failure to take action on pay equity. Canadian women still earn just 74¢ for every dollar that a man makes, and we have fallen dramatically in international rankings.

Does the minister really believe that women should wait even longer to get equal pay for work of equal value?

[Status of Women, February 23rd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I will point out that it was the Liberal government that issued the fisheries permits in July last year which allowed the project to go forward. This is entirely in the Liberal government's lap, as has been pointed out by National Chief Perry Bellegarde of the Assembly of First Nations, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, and many other leaders in the strongest words.

Recently, we heard from Margot Young at the status of women committee. In talking about the disproportionate impacts on women, she said:

It really points again to the need to think about the gendered consequences and to have a lens that allows you access to the gender inequality consequences across a range of policy options. Really, what a national gender equality strategy would allow is the kind of systematic thinking about this issue that really would make the change to women's status in Canada.

Therefore, I ask again if the government will evaluate infrastructure projects with a gender lens.

[Status of Women, February 23rd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the last time I took up the issue of the government's commitments to indigenous women and the environment was in November when Amnesty International had just released a report on resource development in northeastern B.C. The headlines the following days read, ”In approving dam permits, Ottawa forgets its reconciliation promises”. We said at the time that the federal government had been green lighting development projects without any consideration for inequalities and risks to women that were too often a result of megaproject development.

The Amnesty International report also identified that there were no federally funded on reserve shelters in northeastern British Columbia.

I would like to know what the government has done since this very troubling study was released in November, when we last talked about it in question period.

I had the privilege of travelling to the Peace River Valley in July last year to meet with the landowners, the indigenous chiefs, the traditional territory of Treaty 8 nations. I met Yvonne Tupper, who is an inspiring, strong, Cree activist woman. She has made her home in the Peace River Valley. She wrote to me last night to say:

Site C will destroy migration paths for Predators and they will stay on either side of river. Wolves, grizzly bears, bears, wolverines. And Eagles nests destroyed. We are connected to land....Women and young girls should feel valued, appreciated, and respect like any and all women and young girls should in BC, Canada and world. We deserve it considering our lands, are being stolen in vast paces.

I also heard from Craig Benjamin who was one of the authors of the Amnesty report. He wrote to me this week to say:

The thing that has really stuck with me from conversations with Indigenous women in Treaty 8 territory, is hearing again and again that places like the lands threatened by Site C are vital healing places and that a government committed to stopping violence against women, has to be committed to standing with Indigenous women and their communities when they seek to protect those healing places.

The other point that we stressed in our...report is that we have more than two decades of studies in northeast BC repeatedly linking large-scale resource development to known threats to women's safety and wellbeing, from rising costs of living to shortages of housing and child care to rising substance abuse and violence--all of which was quite simply ignored in the assessment of the largest resource development in the region in recent history.

We heard testimony this week at the Status of Women committee from Kathleen Lahey, saying, “Canada has for a long time looked at infrastructure spending as its number one solution to economic growth problems”. She went on to describe the need to do a gender lens assessment of such spending to ensure it would have equal benefits for men and women, but also, and most important, not disproportionate negative impacts on women.

What has the government done since the tabling of this Amnesty International report on the Site C dam approvals to ensure there will not be further federal approvals that do not go through a gender test to ensure our most vulnerable people and environments are protected?

[Preclearance Act, 2016, February 21st, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I would like to hear my colleague's comments on whether he is getting the same kind of mail that I am, hearing from constituents who are concerned that U.S. border guards are not likely to carry out responsibilities at our border in the way we would expect on Canadian soil. Here is an excerpt from a letter from Katherine in Nanaimo. She is a U.S. citizen and a Canadian permanent resident. She said:

My second objection to Bill C-23 has to do with the new powers that it would give to American border guards in pre-clearance areas. I do not think that American border agents on Canadian soil should have the power to carry firearms, detain Canadian citizens or residents, or conduct strip searches....

I am sure that there are practical and economic benefits to Bill C-23. I myself enjoy the convenience of pre-screening when I visit the U.S. through Vancouver International Airport. These benefits, however, cannot be valued higher than the human rights of Canadian citizens and residents.

I'd like to know whether my colleague has heard anything through this debate that gives him confidence that the violations my constituent describes are justified by the accelerated movement of travel through the border.

[Preclearance Act, 2016, February 21st, 2017]

Madam Speaker, to my colleague, I imagine that you are getting the same kind of mail that I am—

[Business of Supply, February 16th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's reminder of the larger context here. We have recently witnessed a very high-profile American election where a sexist, racist president was chosen with fewer votes than his opponent. Nevertheless, in a broken electoral system in the U.S., that is who will now be setting the tone in the media for the next four years.

We are seeing some of the same echoes in the Conservative leadership campaign, so I absolutely share my fellow member's concern that the tone at the top is very important and that we need to speak out and condemn racism and sexism where we see it.

I certainly hope Conservatives on this side of the House will choose a leader who reflects an approach to a tolerant and diverse country and will not be swept up in some of the fanning of the flames we have seen recently, to great harm.

[Business of Supply, February 16th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, if I have the math right, that side of the House will vote in support of Motion No. 103. Probably most New Democrats will also, and Motion No. 103 will then be the direction given to a committee to study and it will bring some recommendations back.

If any members on the other side agree with me that we should support the Conservative motion, then we will have also a study at committee that talks about ending racism.

There is no loss in this. Let us get on with the work. Let us vote in favour of both motions and get down to work, as Canadians are asking us to, and show leadership and stamp racism out in every form.