Hon. Rose-Marie Losier-Cool:

Honourable senators, I am speaking today to the inquiry by Senator Poy concerning the choices women have in all aspects of our lives.

As a woman who has always fought for women's rights, I am proud of Senator Poy's initiative and I applaud her for bringing to your attention hard facts that many of us know but that so many of us ignore.

On June 22, Senator Poy spoke about the choices women have in many areas, from finance to health, including reproductive health. She also spoke about rape, violence, feticide, contraception and abortion. I applaud her courage. Today, I would like to continue what she started, by speaking about the fifth Millennium Development Goal.

Honourable senators will remember that world leaders gathered at the UN in New York City in September 2000 to hash out eight goals to make the world a better place by 2015. The first goal seeks to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. The second calls for universal primary education. The third aims for true equality between women and men and for the empowerment of women. Some of you may recall the speech I made about this third goal in this very chamber in May 2005. The fourth goal seeks to curb child mortality. The sixth goal calls for a fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. The seventh goal targets a sustainable development environment. The last goal, number 8, calls on world countries to strike a global partnership to foster development in less privileged countries.

The fifth goal — the subject of my speech — aims to improve maternal health by reducing the maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters by 2015. This goal also aims to achieve universal access to reproductive health by 2015, or, in simpler terms, access to sexual and reproductive health services and care, from sexual activity through to birth and beyond.

These services and care include qualified staff, safe delivery, sexual education, prenatal care, contraception, safe abortion, care during pregnancy, and support for family planning.

Senator Poy's speech was timely, since it coincided with the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Millennium Development Goals, with the recent UN summit on these goals, held in New York, and with the current Canadian federal government's interest in issues related to maternal and child health.

In Muskoka this summer, our Prime Minister, acknowledging the fact that over half a million women throughout the world die each year of pregnancy-related causes, also expressed his belief that Millennium Goal 5 will not be met. As he promised earlier in the year, he then pledged an initiative to improve the health of mothers and children around the poorest regions of the world. With regard to women, the Prime Minister suggested access to drinking water, vaccination, better nutrition and obstetrical training as possible solutions. Canada's financial contribution to this initiative would be $2.85 billion in total by 2015.

I would like to thank the Prime Minister for his interest and for the substantial funding he has allocated for the project. However, I would remind honourable senators about the concerns raised by the Liberal Party of Canada last spring, specifically, that the initiative announced by the Prime Minister in Muskoka should also include access to contraception and safe abortion, two important aspects that were missing from the Prime Minister's speech.

While the Prime Minister eventually talked about family planning, which can be interpreted to include contraception, he remained adamant that safe abortions be specifically excluded from his soon-to-be-launched initiative. However, Canadians rallied behind our concerns and, in May, a poll found that close to 60 per cent of our population disagreed with the Prime Minister's exclusion of safe abortions. Unfortunately, this poll did not sway the Prime Minister.

I refuse to enter into an ideological debate at this time on the perception of female sexuality or on abortion. However, as a woman, I believe that a woman's body belongs to her alone, that she alone should be the one who decides whether or not to enter into a sexual relationship, that she has every right to decide whether that relationship will lead to pregnancy, and in the event of an unplanned pregnancy, that she has every right to decide whether or not to go ahead with the pregnancy.

A woman who does not know her body, the mechanics of sexuality or her rights might not be able to make the decisions I just referred to. That is why sex education is absolutely crucial and must be the second component funded by the Government of Canada in the context of its initiative announced in Muskoka. By "sex education," I mean comprehensive, free education that is accessible to everyone.

Many of us will remember our distinguished senator, who was a woman minister, Senator Lois Wilson. She used to say that education is the best form of prevention.

The first component should obviously be the training of qualified staff to educate these women. Without qualified staff, there is no information and without information there can be no informed decision-making.

Assuming the best possible world where there are enough qualified health care workers and all women are fully informed about what their body does and how it does it, and about their rights as women, the next step that should be covered by the Muskoka initiative is access to sexual health services and products, including contraceptives. Obviously, what is the point of having informed women if they cannot be properly cared for in their womanhood, including before, during and after a pregnancy? What is the point of telling women that they can choose when to have babies if they do not have access to contraceptive means?

Let us go even further and imagine an even more perfect world where women are educated and have access to contraceptives. But how can we disregard human error, rape, or occasional contraceptive failure? Even in this nearly perfect world, that we are far from achieving, a woman could unwittingly become pregnant and decide that she is not ready to be a mother. In that case there would be access to safe abortion. This could save the 219 women who die every day, somewhere in the world, from complications of unsafe abortions.

The most basic logic would require the Muskoka initiative to add safe abortion to the services funded by the current Government of Canada. Unfortunately, that is still not the case.

I am just as worried about a recent partnership agreement between the current Canadian government and the government of Mali. This agreement, signed under the auspices of the Muskoka initiative, aims at bettering the health of mothers, newborns and young children. The agreement favours access to well-equipped health centres, deals with the training of qualified personnel, and focuses on the nutritional health of pregnant mothers and young children. However, the agreement makes no mention whatsoever of family planning or contraception. It seems the current Canadian government has chosen to leave it up to the Malian government to use Canadian monies to fund contraceptive products, or not.

The current Canadian government says it is concerned about reporting the slightest expense incurred in Canada, and rightfully so. It should also be concerned about how its outlays are accounted for internationally. Given the significant sums at stake, it seems that the current Canadian government could require its international partners to respect certain basic criteria before any money is granted. In the present case, the Canadian government could have required the Malian government to use the funds for purposes clearly stipulated in the agreement.

I hope the current Canadian government will fix this by negotiating with greater clarity any future partnerships with other countries under the Muskoka agreement.

Honourable senators, the choices available to women, Canadian or not, are an inescapable reality. These choices sometimes present problems, the gravity of which varies around the world. The Muskoka initiative is an interesting step forward. I hope the Canadian government will better define its future partnership agreements with other countries and keep the survival of women and mothers separate from its partisan, electoral and ideological agendas.

I believe that to fully comply with Millennium Goal 5, the Canadian government should recognise that contraception and safe abortions are integral means to sexual health and the survival of women and mothers.

Recent Statements from Liberal Senators