Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in honour of International Women’s Day, I would like to take this opportunity to speak about the Canadian Women’s March 2005 Coalition. This is a group made up of 10 national women’s and social justice groups committed to the elimination of poverty and violence in Canada and making the links between local and global actions.

Mr. Speaker, they are launching their international campaign today on International Women’s Day and it will go on to October 17, 2005, which is the International Day for the Elimination of Poverty. In particular, Mr. Speaker, the coalition is pushing the federal government to meet 13 demands which were first announced back in 2000. There will be events held around the world and Canada including one that will be held in Yellowknife on May 2nd. Mr. Speaker, the 13 demands, for the record, are as follows:

Restore federal funding to health care and enforce the rules against privatization of our health care system;

Keep the promise to spend an additional $1.5 billion over five years for affordable housing and build 25,000 new affordable housing units every year for the next five years;

Implement a publicly funded and publicly accountable not-for-profit national childcare system;

Increase old age security payments to provide older women with a decent standard of living;

Use the surplus from the employment insurance plan to increase benefits, provide longer payment periods and improve access, as well as improve maternity and family benefits;

Support women’s organizations for equality and democracy;

Fund consultations with a wide range of women’s equality seeking organizations prior to all legislative reform of relevance to women’s security and equality rights beginning with the Criminal Code and ensure access for women from marginalized communities;

Implement a progressive immigration reform;

Contribute to the elimination of poverty around the world;

Adopt national standards which guarantee the right to welfare for everyone in need and ban warfare;

Recognize the value of exclusion of women with disabilities from economic, political and social life and take the first step of ensuring and funding full access for women with disabilities to all consultations on relevant issues;

Establish a post-secondary education transfer and increase funds to a national system of grants;

Immediately introduce and adopt proactive pay equity legislation based on the federal Pay Equity Task Force recommendations.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause