New Democrats: Time to Put Canadian Women & Children First!

OTTAWA – New Democrat leader Jack Layton was joined by NDP Status of Women Critic Irene Mathyssen (London-Fanshawe), NDP Health Critic Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North) and NDP Children’s Issues Critic Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina) today to urge their federal counterparts to find enough common ground to make women and children a priority in the next session of Parliament.

The New Democrat’s invitation follows Prime Minister Harper’s pledge to make maternal and child health a priority at the G8 summit in Canada this June.

“I’ll take Mr. Harper’s interest in impoverished mothers at face value, but leadership always starts at home.

If Canada wants to lead or lecture the world on anything, we’d better start by filling the gaping holes in our own backward. Let’s make this the Women and Children First session of Parliament,” Mr. Layton said at a press conference on Monday.

According to the Global Gender Gap Index, Canada now ranks behind Mongolia, Latvia and Sri Lanka on gender equality. The Conference Board of Canada says that one in seven Canadian children lives in poverty. And just last week, Northern leaders reminded reporters that mortality rates among Inuit babies are three times the national average.

Layton, Chow, Wasylycia-Leis and Mathyssen outlined a series of concrete New Democrat proposals that, if embraced by the other parties, would mean real progress for women and children. Those proposals include:

• fixing Employment Insurance rules that deny eligibility to six in ten women;
• adopting key recommendations of the 2004 Pay Equity Task Force;
• increasing support for women’s groups working to prevent violence;
• launching an inquiry into 520 missing or murdered Aboriginal women;
• launching an initiative to ensure every child has daily access to healthy food;
• boosting the Guaranteed Income Supplement to end poverty among seniors (overwhelmingly women).

“Parliamentarians have talked about ending child poverty in this country for twenty years. We’ve heard successive governments pay lip service to gender equity, while cutting funding to women’s programs. Canadians have been promised a national childcare plan almost as long, without any real action. Quebec has done it, but the rest of Canada is years behind.” Mathyssen said. “It’s not enough to talk about these issues ; action is long overdue. It is time to put partisan differences aside and take action that will make a real difference for Canadian women and children.